• DevP2P
• Ethereum Blockchain
• peer-to-peer network
• RLPx

Ethereum is a blockchain-based computing platform for building decentralized applications. For
Ethereum to succeed in its core ideology of simplicity, universality, agility, modularity, non-discrimination, and non-censorship [27], it needs to employ several secure decentralized data systems. These decentralized systems are based on a peer-to-peer (P2P) computer network and are not subject to the whims of a central authority like government or server administrators. Valued at over 22 billion US dollars as of September 2019, it is the second largest Blockchain-based cryptocurrency by market capitalization after the Bitcoin [12]. While the P2P network of Bitcoin has been given lots of research efforts [54, 55, 56, 57, 58], Ethereum commonly referred to as Bitcoin 2.0 with a fundamentally diverse and complex network structure has received less comprehensive study. The purpose of this thesis is to understand the P2P network of Ethereum. We did an overall introduction of the Ethereum blockchain system to provide background study. We then analyzed the P2P structure of the Ethereum Network over a period of two months on the Mainnet - Homestead. Data were collected from over 217,514 distinct nodes. Collected data allowed us to make analysis on the network types, node status, service type of nodes, node geographical distribution and ISP providers.