PONE-D-20-23629

Unobtrusive Bitcoin network monitoring

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Mödinger,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Dec 11 2020 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

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• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

He Debiao

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements.

1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The paper discusses existing network-latency measurement strategies and focuses how to unobtrusively acquire reliable estimates of the dissemination latencies for transactions. The dissemination latency is modeled in the Bitcoin network with a log-normal distribution. The paper targets on network behavior and shows that the approach, is largely congruent with actual dissemination latencies. The author explored several possible distributions, before establishing the log normal distribution as the most fitting model. Bayesian scheme is used to adapt the estimates over several measurements. After examining the paper, the following problems were found and the author is suggested to do revisions as mentioned below:

1) The abstract is informative for the purpose and explains the content of the work. But the author is suggested to introduce the problem, identify the main objectives/scope, mention the materials and methods, result and final conclusions.

2) In academic writing, it is important to avoid personal bias. The author is suggested to modify the repeated use of "We" in the article. Using “we” makes the MS about you and your experiences, instead of research and concrete details. Therefore reform such sentences.

3) Acronyms and abbreviations should be clearly defined on their first occurrence in the text by writing the term out in full and following it with the abbreviation in round brackets. For example: Automated teller machine (ATM).

4) Number the equations in the paper.

5) In the conclusion section the author had mentioned "The results could be improved, by further improvements of the error estimation and compensation, as well as the adaption of a full Kalman filter." and “The applicability of other metrics and properties for the process requires a case-by-case investigation, though”.. I suggest the author to provide a synthesis to address the research problem and make a brief summary of the evidence. Finish with some sort of judgment so that the conclusion gets supported by the presented results as discussed.

6) Revise the reference format of the Reference list by including journal name, vol, pp, year.

For example In case of referring to a book/monograph "Rao, C.N.R. & Raveau, Transition Metal Oxides, Wiley, 2nd Edition, 2016, Ch. 2, pp 134-137.

For example in case of referring to a Report "Marine, R.E. & Iliff, K.W. Application of Parameter Estimation to Aircraft Stability and Control. NASA, USA, 1986, Report No. NASA-RP-1168".

7) The quality of images used needs to be improved.

8) In Figures mention the unit of Y axis. If any arbitrary unit is used, use arb. unit, AU, or a.u.

9) Title is the most important element which defines the research study. If it is too short, then it does not tell the reader what is being studied and looks non specific. A good title should provide information about the focus of your research study and utilizes search engine optimization technique to its benefit. Make the title a little long, typically around 8 to 10 words by either highlighting the research problem under investigation or scope of the study or declarative statement or fundamental content.

Reviewer #2: Article is addressing an important issue of cryptocurrency. Risk assessment in bitcoin is very important to gain confidence of the people. Monitoring of bitcoin network is very important to reduce the risk of attack from criminals.

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6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: Yes: Abilash

Reviewer #2: No

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

Unobtrusive monitoring: Statistical dissemination latency estimation in Bitcoin's peer-to-peer network

PONE-D-20-23629R1

Dear Dr. Mödinger,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

He Debiao

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

The author have revised the paper according to reviewers' comments.

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The aim is almost derivable from the title and synchronizes with that in the abstract and introduction sections. The results were well presented and comprehensible. The paper is now clear, concise, and relevant. The author revised the paper properly, as per the comments given. The manuscript looks free from flaws now.

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: Yes: Dr. Abilash

Reviewer #2: No