Process Mining on Blockchain Data: A Case Study of Augur

Abstract

Through its smart contract capabilities, blockchain has become a technology for automating cross-organizational processes on a neutral platform. Process mining has emerged as a popular toolbox for understanding processes and how they are executed in practice. While researchers have recently created techniques for the challenging task of extracting authoritative data from blockchains to facilitate the analysis of blockchain applications using process mining, as yet there has been no clear evaluation of the usefulness of process mining on blockchain data. With this paper, we close that gap with an in-depth case study of process mining on the popular Ethereum application Augur, a prediction and betting marketplace. We were able to generate value-adding insights for application-redesign and security analysis, as validated by the application’s chief architect and revealed blind spots in Augur’s white paper.