Related papers: Blockchain is Watching You: Profiling and Deanonym…
Cryptocurrencies based on decentralized systems, especially blockchain, are gaining popularity more than ever. Freedom advocates hail blockchain technology as a breakthrough in digital privacy and internet anonymity. Unfortunately, after…
Privacy protection mechanisms are a fundamental aspect of security in cryptocurrency systems, particularly in decentralized networks such as Bitcoin. Although Bitcoin addresses are not directly associated with real-world identities, this…
Bitcoin is the most popular cryptocurrency used worldwide. It provides pseudonymity to its users by establishing identity using public keys as transaction end-points. These transactions are recorded on an immutable public ledger called…
The blockchain technology is believed by many to be a game changer in many application domains, especially financial applications. While the first generation of blockchain technology (i.e., Blockchain 1.0) is almost exclusively used for…
Ethereum relies on a peer-to-peer overlay network to propagate information. The knowledge of Ethereum network topology holds the key to understanding Ethereum's security, availability, and user anonymity. From a measurement perspective, an…
We consider the privacy of interactions between individuals in a network. For many networks, while nodes are anonymous to outside observers, the existence of a link between individuals implies the possibility of one node revealing…
The peer-to-peer (P2P) network of blockchain used to transport its transactions and blocks has a high impact on the efficiency and security of the system. The P2P network topologies of popular blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum,…
The integration of permissioned blockchain such as Hyperledger fabric (HF) and Industrial internet of Things (IIoT) has opened new opportunities for interdependent supply chain partners to improve their performance through data sharing and…
In the area of blockchains, a wallet is anything that manages the access to cryptocurrencies and tokens. Off-chain wallets appear in different forms, from paper wallets to hardware wallets to dedicated wallet apps, while on-chain wallets…
Blockchain technologies underpin an expanding ecosystem of decentralized applications, financial systems, and infrastructure. However, the fundamental networking layer that sustains these systems, the peer-to-peer layer, of all but the top…
Public blockchains such as Ethereum and Bitcoin provide transparency and accountability, and have strong non-repudiation properties, but fall far short of enterprise privacy requirements for business processes. Consequently consortiums are…
Many tracking companies collect user data and sell it to data markets and advertisers. While they claim to protect user privacy by anonymizing the data, our research reveals that significant privacy risks persist even with anonymized data.…
Cryptocurrency systems can be subject to deanonimization attacks by exploiting the network-level communication on their peer-to-peer network. Adversaries who control a set of colluding node(s) within the peer-to-peer network can observe…
Blockchain technologies have overturned the digital finance industry by introducing a decentralized pseudonymous means of monetary transfer. The pseudonymous nature introduced privacy concerns, enabling various deanonymization techniques,…
Bitcoin is a decentralized, pseudonymous cryptocurrency that is one of the most used digital assets to date. Its unregulated nature and inherent anonymity of users have led to a dramatic increase in its use for illicit activities. This…
Zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) mixers are one of the most widely-used blockchain privacy solutions, operating on top of smart contract-enabled blockchains. We find that ZKP mixers are tightly intertwined with the growing number of Decentralized…
In Ethereum, private transactions, a specialized transaction type employed to evade public Peer-to-Peer (P2P) network broadcasting, remain largely unexplored, particularly in the context of the transition from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to…
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have surged in popularity over the last decade. Although Bitcoin does not claim to provide anonymity for its users, it enjoys a public perception of being a `privacy-preserving' financial system. In…
First, a big data analysis of the transactions and smart contracts made on the Ethereum blockchain is performed, revealing interesting trends in motion. Next, these trends are compared with the public's interest in Ether and Bitcoin,…
It is well known that users on open blockchains are tracked by an industry providing services to governments, law enforcement, secret services, and alike. While most blockchains do not protect their users' privacy and allow external…