Overview
The Edinburgh Decentralisation Index is a free research dashboard that shows how widely control of a blockchain is spread, or how concentrated it is. Researchers and holders can use it to check whether a network leans on a few large players or on many independent ones, and to compare networks side by side on the same scales1.
The index is run by the University of Edinburgh's Blockchain Technology Laboratory, and its measurements build on peer-reviewed papers the team has published2. Cardano and Bitcoin are both measured in each of the dashboard's five layers, so readers can compare the two directly, alongside networks such as Ethereum, Litecoin, Dogecoin, and Tezos3. Funding came from Input Output, the engineering company behind Cardano, and from internal university grants, and the lab states that its funders did not influence the direction or outcomes of the research4.
Key Features
- A one-glance picture of each network. The Decentralisation Compass places several blockchains on one chart and scores them across five areas: who produces blocks, who holds the coins, who writes the node software (the programs that run the network), which companies host the computers running it, and which countries those computers sit in1.
- Coins counted by real owner, not by address. The Edinburgh Decentralisation Index groups wallet addresses that belong to the same organization, using stake pool and staking-key data for Cardano, so one holder spread across many addresses counts once3.
- Several ways to read concentration. Readers can switch between standard measures, such as the Nakamoto coefficient (the smallest number of parties that together control more than half of a resource) and the Gini coefficient, a common gauge of inequality3.
- Software diversity judged from code history. The software view looks at who contributes to each network's node software and merges contributions across independent versions of that software so each network is judged as a whole3.
- Open tools behind the numbers. The analysis tools that produce the layer data are public code on GitHub, so anyone can inspect or rerun them, and the consensus-layer tool is released under the MIT open-source license5.
What to Expect
The dashboard opens on the Decentralisation Compass, with a short note under the chart explaining what each of the five areas measures and a link to a detailed page for each one1. On those pages, you pick networks, choose a measure, and change the time range to see how concentration has shifted over time1. Individual charts can be exported as PNG images for reports or presentations6.
For Cardano holders and stake pool delegators, the consensus view shows how block production is shared among pools, and the ownership view shows how ADA is distributed among holders once related addresses are grouped. These views sit at the network level; stake pool explorers cover the detail of individual pools.
For researchers and analysts, a methodology hub explains the metrics and the data sources behind each layer, including blockchain records pulled from public datasets and self-hosted nodes, and Cardano relay node data collected through Blockfrost, a Cardano data provider3. A public changelog records when networks and layers were added to the EDI6. Organizations that run nodes can contribute their own datasets through published guides and data templates, including a walkthrough for sharing files over IPFS, a peer-to-peer file-sharing network7.
The site is read-only: there is nothing to connect, sign, or pay for.
