Revealing and Concealing Bitcoin Identities: A Survey of Techniques

Abstract

Bitcoin remains the most widely used cryptocurrency. It has attracted users from tech enthusiasts to commercial investors to criminals, in no small part due to its reputation for anonymity. While not designed primarily for privacy, Bitcoin's architecture contains several provisions that can be exploited by criminals to conduct illegal activity including money laundering and collecting payments from ransomware and scams. Since Bitcoin's creation in 2008, various groups such as law enforcement, lawyers, criminals and privacy-focused Bitcoin users have been locked in a struggle between attempts to reveal hidden Bitcoin users' identities and attempts to keep those identities concealed. We present a survey of the techniques used within Bitcoin to reveal or conceal users' identities. We provide an easy to understand explanations of how these techniques work and provide a cross reference of which revealing techniques are effective for specific concealing techniques.