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Collaborative Deanonymization

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Financial Cryptography and Data Security. FC 2021 International Workshops (FC 2021)

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Abstract

Privacy-seeking cryptocurrency users rely on anonymization techniques like CoinJoin and ring transactions. By using such technologies benign users potentially provide anonymity to bad actors. We propose overlay protocols to resolve the tension between anonymity and accountability in a peer-to-peer manner. Cryptocurrencies can adopt this approach to enable prosecution of publicly recognized crimes. We illustrate how the protocols could apply to Monero rings and CoinJoin transactions in Bitcoin.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Conversely, if the LEA has some information (e. g. due to non-uniformly valued inputs and outputs), it can partition the transaction and proceed as described.

  2. 2.

    A CoinJoin with \(m=100\) made headlines in June 2019: https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-users-perform-what-might-be-the-largest-coinjoin-ever.

  3. 3.

    We depart from Monero’s terminology, which calls an entire ring “input.”.

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Acknowledgements

We thank our colleagues Michael Fröwis, Malte Möser, Tim Ruffing, and a number of anonymous reviewers for helpful discussions of earlier versions of this work. Rainer Böhme’s and Patrik Keller’s work on this topic is supported by the Austrian FFG’s KIRAS programme under project VIRTCRIME.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria

    Patrik Keller & Rainer Böhme

  2. Weizenbaum Institute, Humboldt University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Martin Florian

Authors
  1. Patrik Keller
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  2. Martin Florian
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  3. Rainer Böhme
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Correspondence to Patrik Keller .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Michigan–Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Matthew Bernhard

  2. Computer Science and Mathematics, Stirling University, Stirling, UK

    Andrea Bracciali

  3. Imperial College London, London, UK

    Lewis Gudgeon

  4. Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway

    Thomas Haines

  5. Ithaca College, Ithaca, USA

    Ariah Klages-Mundt

  6. Department of Computer Science, Georgetown University, Washington, WA, USA

    Shin'ichiro Matsuo

  7. Imperial College London, London, UK

    Daniel Perez

  8. Dipartimento di Matematica, University of Trento, Trento, Trento, Italy

    Massimiliano Sala

  9. Imperial College London, London, UK

    Sam Werner

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Keller, P., Florian, M., Böhme, R. (2021). Collaborative Deanonymization. In: Bernhard, M., et al. Financial Cryptography and Data Security. FC 2021 International Workshops. FC 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12676. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-63958-0_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-63958-0_3

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-662-63958-0

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