Paper 2019/1111

Short Paper: Towards Characterizing Sybil Attacks in Cryptocurrency Mixers

Mikerah Quintyne-Collins

Abstract

Sybil attacks are a well-studied problem in peer-to-peer networking systems. However, their relevance to cryptocurrency mixers has received little attention in the literature, with only a few papers in recent times aiming to design mixers that are resistant to Sybil attacks. A lot of the research has been primarily driven by independent cryptocurrency enthusiasts. We attempt to provide a few characterizations of Sybil attacks as they pertain to mixers and provide mitigations based on economics in order to disincentive Sybil attacks against mixers. In doing so, we highlight that the security of mixers need not only be analyzed through the use of cryptographic techniques but also with the use of economic techniques. Moreover, we provide future research directions in determining heuristics for detecting Sybil identities in mixers.

Metadata
Available format(s)
PDF
Category
Applications
Publication info
Preprint. MINOR revision.
Keywords
anonymitycryptocurrencyblockchainsybil attack
Contact author(s)
mikerahqc @ protonmail com
History
2019-10-01: received
Short URL
https://ia.cr/2019/1111
License
Creative Commons Attribution
CC BY

BibTeX

@misc{cryptoeprint:2019/1111,
      author = {Mikerah Quintyne-Collins},
      title = {Short Paper: Towards Characterizing Sybil Attacks in Cryptocurrency Mixers},
      howpublished = {Cryptology ePrint Archive, Paper 2019/1111},
      year = {2019},
      note = {\url{https://eprint.iacr.org/2019/1111}},
      url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2019/1111}
}
Note: In order to protect the privacy of readers, eprint.iacr.org does not use cookies or embedded third party content.