Understanding Bitcoin Privacy

This series provides you with a starting point for continuing to expand your understanding of bitcoin privacy. This series should be considered a prerequisite to understanding our other analysis and reports

Part I

In this section we introduce many of the basic concepts around bitcoin transaction privacy and learn several core heuristics that chain surveillance firms make use of.

Understanding Bitcoin Privacy with OXT — Part 1

Introduction Awareness of Bitcoin’s value proposition for censorship resistant payments took off in 2011 with the launch of Silk Road and the rescue of the otherwise donation starved Wikileaks. Simultaneously a dangerous and inaccurate narrative surrounding bitcoin transaction privacy took off:…

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Part II

In this section we focus on two of the most important tools underpinning chain analysis: The transaction graph and the common input ownership heuristic (aka wallet clustering).

Understanding Bitcoin Privacy with OXT — Part 2

Introduction Now that we have presented the basic concepts in Part 1, we can move on to the core concepts that underpin chain analysis by expanding our analyses to include “external” transaction data. Understanding Bitcoin Privacy with OXT — Part 1Introduction Awareness of Bitcoin’s value propos…

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Part III

In this section we discuss methods for undermining chain analysis such as defeating heuristics, creating an ambiguous transaction graph, and using coinjoin.

Understanding Bitcoin Privacy with OXT — Part 3

Introduction With the foundational concepts of chain analysis introduced in Part 1 and Part 2, Part 3 will discuss the methods for undermining chain analysis. In this section we will present the following: 1. defeating heuristics for change detection in simple spends 2. creating an ambiguous…

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Part IV

In this section we review real world implications of sending and receiving transactions on user privacy and present specific privacy enhancing technologies that can be used to maintain privacy when interacting with bitcoin.

Understanding Bitcoin Privacy with OXT — Part 4

Introduction So far this guide has introduced the basics concepts used by chain analysis and the concepts used to undermine chain analysis. Previous parts in this series Understanding Bitcoin Privacy with OXT — Part 1Introduction Awareness of Bitcoin’s value proposition for censorship resis…

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