Dandelion++: Lightweight cryptocurrency networking with formal anonymity guarantees

Giulia Fanti, Bradley Denby, Shaileshh Bojja Venkatakrishnan, Shruti Bhargava, Pramod Viswanath, Surya Bakshi, Andrew Miller

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

Recent work has demonstrated significant anonymity vulnerabilities in Bitcoin’s networking stack. In particular, the current mechanism for broadcasting Bitcoin transactions allows third-party observers to link transactions to the IP addresses that originated them. This lays the groundwork for low-cost, large-scale deanonymization attacks. In this work, we present Dandelion++, a first-principles defense against large-scale deanonymization attacks with near-optimal information-theoretic guarantees. Dandelion++ builds upon a recent proposal called Dandelion that exhibited similar goals. However, in this paper, we highlight some simplifying assumptions made in Dandelion, and show how they can lead to serious deanonymization attacks when violated. In contrast, Dandelion++ defends against stronger adversaries that are allowed to disobey protocol. Dandelion++ is lightweight, scalable, and completely interoperable with the existing Bitcoin network. We evaluate it through experiments on Bitcoin’s mainnet (i.e., the live Bitcoin network) to demonstrate its interoperability and low broadcast latency overhead.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationSIGMETRICS 2018 - Abstracts of the 2018 ACM International Conference on Measurement and Modeling of Computer Systems
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
Pages5-7
Number of pages3
ISBN (Electronic)9781450358460
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 12 2018
Externally publishedYes
Event2018 ACM International Conference on Measurement and Modeling of Computer Systems, SIGMETRICS 2018 - Irvine, United States
Duration: Jun 18 2018Jun 22 2018

Publication series

NameSIGMETRICS 2018 - Abstracts of the 2018 ACM International Conference on Measurement and Modeling of Computer Systems

Other

Other2018 ACM International Conference on Measurement and Modeling of Computer Systems, SIGMETRICS 2018
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityIrvine
Period6/18/186/22/18

Keywords

  • Anonymity
  • Cryptocurrencies
  • P2P networks

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Computer Networks and Communications
  • Hardware and Architecture
  • Computational Theory and Mathematics
  • Software

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