Description of Work

In this work, we want to analyze Ethereum miners in terms of the size of mined blocks

This work includes the following sections:

1. Analyzing Ethereum mined blocks in 2022
2. Define the block with the high number of transactions and the block with the low number of transactions
3. Do certain miners only mine blocks with high transaction count?
4. Do certain miners prefer mining blocks with lower transaction count?
5. Conclusion

1 - Analyzing Ethereum mined blocks in 2022

Methodology

In this, we use the data of [ethereum.core.fact_blocks] table.

In this dashboard, the phrase "miner" includes both “miners” and “mining pools”.

• For example, Ethermine is considered a miner, while it is a mining pool with 213,533 miners working in a mining pool called Ethermine.

✔️Observations

• The total number of mined blocks in 2022 equals 1.576M.
• The average number of mined blocks per day equals 6330.
• The highest number of mined blocks was recorded on 2022-02-04(6556 blocks), 2022-01-22 (6556 blocks), and 2022-07-08(6553 blocks), respectively.
• The total number of active miners in 2022 equals 149.
• The top 5 miners based on the number of mined blocks are:
  • Ethermine - 457235 mined blocks - 29% of total mined blocks
  • F2Pool Old - 222080 mined blocks - 14.08% of total mined blocks
  • Hiveon Pool - 165985 mined blocks - 10.53% of total mined blocks
  • 2Miners: PPLNS - 91860 mined blocks - 5.82% of total mined blocks
  • Flexpool.io - 82709 mined blocks - 5.24% of total mined blocks

2 - Defining the block with the high number of transactions and the block with the low number of transactions

Methodology

To define the high and the low number of transactions in blocks, we use the concept of quartile.

First, let's explain the concept of a quarter:

• In statistics, a quartile is a type of quantile which divides the number of data points into four parts, or quarters, of more-or-less equal size. The data must be ordered from smallest to largest to compute quartiles; as such, quartiles are a form of order statistic. The three main quartiles are as follows:

  • The first quartile (Q1) is defined as the middle number between the smallest number (minimum) and the median of the data set. It is also known as the lower or 25th empirical quartile, as 25% of the data is below this point.

  • The second quartile (Q2) is the median of a data set; thus 50% of the data lies below this point.

  • The third quartile (Q3) is the middle value between the median and the highest value (maximum) of the data set. It is known as the upper or 75th empirical quartile, as 75% of the data lies below this point

    Source: Wikipedia

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• If the number of transactions in a block (tx_count) is smaller than the first quartile (Q1), we consider that block as a block with a low transaction count

• If the number of transactions in a block (tx_count) is greater than the third quartile (Q3), we consider that block as a block with a high transaction count

✔️Observations

• 391K mined blocks have tx_count less than Q1(72) and are considered as blocks with low transaction count.

• 389K mined blocks have tx_count more than Q3(273) and are considered as blocks with transaction count.

3 - Do certain miners only mine blocks with high transaction count?

Methodology

First, we get the addresses of the miners who mine the blocks with high transaction count.

Then we get the address of the miners who mine the blocks with low transaction count.

Finally, we left join the results obtained above on the addresses of miners, and we obtain addresses of miners who have not mined any block with low number of transactions.

✔️Observations

• 17 miners have mined only blocks with high transaction count and have not mined any blocks with low transaction count

4 - Do certain miners prefer mining blocks with lower transaction count?

Methodology

First, we get the addresses of the miners who mine the blocks with a low transaction count.

Then we get the address of the miners who mine the blocks with a high transaction count.

Finally, we left join the results obtained above, on the addresses of miners, and we obtain the addresses of miners who mined blocks with low transaction count more than blocks with high transaction count

Conclusion

• The total number of mined blocks in 2022 equals 1.576M.

• The total number of active miners in 2022 equals 149.

• There are 17 miners who have mined only blocks with high transaction count and have not mined any blocks with low transaction count

• There are 56 miners who prefer mining blocks with lower transaction count.