A fistful of bitcoins: Characterizing payments among men with no names

Sarah Meiklejohn; Marjori Pomarole; Grant Jordan; Kirill Levchenko; Damon McCoy; Geoffrey M. Voelker; Stefan Savage

doi:10.1145/2504730.2504747

A fistful of bitcoins: Characterizing payments among men with no names

Sarah Meiklejohn, Marjori Pomarole, Grant Jordan, Kirill Levchenko, Damon McCoy, Geoffrey M. Voelker, Stefan Savage

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

Abstract

Bitcoin is a purely online virtual currency, unbacked by either physical commodities or sovereign obligation; instead, it relies on a combination of cryptographic protection and a peer-to-peer protocol for witnessing settlements. Consequently, Bitcoin has the unintuitive property that while the ownership of money is implicitly anonymous, its flow is globally visible. In this paper we explore this unique characteristic further, using heuristic clustering to group Bitcoin wallets based on evidence of shared authority, and then using re-identification attacks (i.e., empirical purchasing of goods and services) to classify the operators of those clusters. From this analysis, we characterize longitudinal changes in the Bitcoin market, the stresses these changes are placing on the system, and the challenges for those seeking to use Bitcoin for criminal or fraudulent purposes at scale.

Original language	English (US)
Title of host publication	IMC 2013 - Proceedings of the 13th ACM Internet Measurement Conference
Pages	127-139
Number of pages	13
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/2504730.2504747
State	Published - 2013
Event	13th ACM Internet Measurement Conference, IMC 2013 - Barcelona, Spain Duration: Oct 23 2013 → Oct 25 2013

Publication series

Name	Proceedings of the ACM SIGCOMM Internet Measurement Conference, IMC

Other

Other	13th ACM Internet Measurement Conference, IMC 2013
Country/Territory	Spain
City	Barcelona
Period	10/23/13 → 10/25/13

Keywords

Anonymity
Bitcoin
Measurement

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Software
Computer Networks and Communications

Access to Document

10.1145/2504730.2504747

Cite this

Meiklejohn, S., Pomarole, M., Jordan, G., Levchenko, K., McCoy, D., Voelker, G. M., & Savage, S. (2013). A fistful of bitcoins: Characterizing payments among men with no names. In IMC 2013 - Proceedings of the 13th ACM Internet Measurement Conference (pp. 127-139). (Proceedings of the ACM SIGCOMM Internet Measurement Conference, IMC). https://doi.org/10.1145/2504730.2504747

A fistful of bitcoins: Characterizing payments among men with no names. / Meiklejohn, Sarah; Pomarole, Marjori; Jordan, Grant et al.
IMC 2013 - Proceedings of the 13th ACM Internet Measurement Conference. 2013. p. 127-139 (Proceedings of the ACM SIGCOMM Internet Measurement Conference, IMC).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

Meiklejohn, S, Pomarole, M, Jordan, G, Levchenko, K, McCoy, D, Voelker, GM & Savage, S 2013, A fistful of bitcoins: Characterizing payments among men with no names. in IMC 2013 - Proceedings of the 13th ACM Internet Measurement Conference. Proceedings of the ACM SIGCOMM Internet Measurement Conference, IMC, pp. 127-139, 13th ACM Internet Measurement Conference, IMC 2013, Barcelona, Spain, 10/23/13. https://doi.org/10.1145/2504730.2504747

@inproceedings{e60b1744811b418f8277c09a42afb5a3,

title = "A fistful of bitcoins: Characterizing payments among men with no names",

abstract = "Bitcoin is a purely online virtual currency, unbacked by either physical commodities or sovereign obligation; instead, it relies on a combination of cryptographic protection and a peer-to-peer protocol for witnessing settlements. Consequently, Bitcoin has the unintuitive property that while the ownership of money is implicitly anonymous, its flow is globally visible. In this paper we explore this unique characteristic further, using heuristic clustering to group Bitcoin wallets based on evidence of shared authority, and then using re-identification attacks (i.e., empirical purchasing of goods and services) to classify the operators of those clusters. From this analysis, we characterize longitudinal changes in the Bitcoin market, the stresses these changes are placing on the system, and the challenges for those seeking to use Bitcoin for criminal or fraudulent purposes at scale.",

keywords = "Anonymity, Bitcoin, Measurement",

author = "Sarah Meiklejohn and Marjori Pomarole and Grant Jordan and Kirill Levchenko and Damon McCoy and Voelker, {Geoffrey M.} and Stefan Savage",

year = "2013",

doi = "10.1145/2504730.2504747",

language = "English (US)",

isbn = "9781450319539",

series = "Proceedings of the ACM SIGCOMM Internet Measurement Conference, IMC",

pages = "127--139",

booktitle = "IMC 2013 - Proceedings of the 13th ACM Internet Measurement Conference",

note = "13th ACM Internet Measurement Conference, IMC 2013 ; Conference date: 23-10-2013 Through 25-10-2013",

}

TY - GEN

T1 - A fistful of bitcoins

T2 - 13th ACM Internet Measurement Conference, IMC 2013

AU - Meiklejohn, Sarah

AU - Pomarole, Marjori

AU - Jordan, Grant

AU - Levchenko, Kirill

AU - McCoy, Damon

AU - Voelker, Geoffrey M.

AU - Savage, Stefan

PY - 2013

Y1 - 2013

N2 - Bitcoin is a purely online virtual currency, unbacked by either physical commodities or sovereign obligation; instead, it relies on a combination of cryptographic protection and a peer-to-peer protocol for witnessing settlements. Consequently, Bitcoin has the unintuitive property that while the ownership of money is implicitly anonymous, its flow is globally visible. In this paper we explore this unique characteristic further, using heuristic clustering to group Bitcoin wallets based on evidence of shared authority, and then using re-identification attacks (i.e., empirical purchasing of goods and services) to classify the operators of those clusters. From this analysis, we characterize longitudinal changes in the Bitcoin market, the stresses these changes are placing on the system, and the challenges for those seeking to use Bitcoin for criminal or fraudulent purposes at scale.

AB - Bitcoin is a purely online virtual currency, unbacked by either physical commodities or sovereign obligation; instead, it relies on a combination of cryptographic protection and a peer-to-peer protocol for witnessing settlements. Consequently, Bitcoin has the unintuitive property that while the ownership of money is implicitly anonymous, its flow is globally visible. In this paper we explore this unique characteristic further, using heuristic clustering to group Bitcoin wallets based on evidence of shared authority, and then using re-identification attacks (i.e., empirical purchasing of goods and services) to classify the operators of those clusters. From this analysis, we characterize longitudinal changes in the Bitcoin market, the stresses these changes are placing on the system, and the challenges for those seeking to use Bitcoin for criminal or fraudulent purposes at scale.

KW - Anonymity

KW - Bitcoin

KW - Measurement

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84890039053&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84890039053&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1145/2504730.2504747

DO - 10.1145/2504730.2504747

M3 - Conference contribution

AN - SCOPUS:84890039053

SN - 9781450319539

T3 - Proceedings of the ACM SIGCOMM Internet Measurement Conference, IMC

SP - 127

EP - 139

BT - IMC 2013 - Proceedings of the 13th ACM Internet Measurement Conference

Y2 - 23 October 2013 through 25 October 2013

ER -

A fistful of bitcoins: Characterizing payments among men with no names

Abstract

Publication series

Other

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this