Análise da rastreabilidade das transações da criptomoeda Monero

Abstract

The adoption of cryptocurrencies as a form of payment has been growing significantly since the launch of the first decentralized digital currency, Bitcoin. Unlike fiat money, cryptocurrencies require only the use of pseudonyms to identify users, allowing them to participate in transactions without the need to disclose any personal information. Despite providing privacy, the use of pseudonyms is not enough, as many studies show that it is possible to identify users through the analysis of transaction data. Some cryptocurrencies were created with the intent of providing better privacy for users, but even those have been shown to be vulnerable to traceability attacks. This work conducts a study on traceability attacks on Monero, a privacy-centered cryptocurrency. We present results obtained through the replication of existing strategies and propose a novel traceability attack, based on flooding the blockchain with attacker’s keys. Simulation results show that an attacker who controls 25% of the keys created within a one year interval is able to trace up to 85,59% of all the input keys used in the same interval. Our findings indicate the existence of vulnerabilities in Monero’s privacy mechanisms. The results shown emphasize the importance of detecting and fixing security issues.