Securing the Future of Cryptocurrency Wallets Cryptocurrency Wallet Safety Scorecard Webinar

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Securing the Future of Cryptocurrency Wallets Cryptocurrency Wallet Safety Scorecard Webinar Securing the Future of Cryptocurrency Wallets Cryptocurrency Wallet Safety Scorecard Webinar March 14, 2018 Can I Get the Slide Deck and Webinar Playback? Of course! • The webinar is being recorded. • The slide deck will be available in Client Portal tomorrow.* • The report is available now in the Client Portal.* www.javelinstrategy.com/user/login *For information on becoming a Javelin subscriber, please contact us after today’s webinar. 2 Confidential JAVELIN Today’s Webinar Speakers Kyle Marchini Senior Analyst, Fraud Management Sean Sposito Analyst, Cybersecurity Al Pascual SVP, Research Director and Head of Fraud & Security 3 Confidential JAVELIN Today’s Agenda The State of the Wallet Market Facing Today’s Fraud Threats Future of Cryptocurrency Wallets Closing thoughts Report Components 26 pages 12 figures 4 Confidential JAVELIN Coinbase Takes “Best in Class” in 2018 Scorecard 2018 Cryptocurrency Wallet Safety Scorecard Leaders 2018 Cryptocurrency Wallet Safety Scorecard BEST IN CLASS Coinbase Prevention Detection Resolution Leaders Leaders Leaders • Coinbase • Blockchain • Blockchain • GreenAddress • Coinbase • Coinbase • Xapo • Xapo 5 Confidential JAVELIN The State of the Wallet Market Understanding Wallets: Non-Custodial Wallets Putting the “wallet” in wallet Private key stored on-device • Resistant to compromise • Send/receive from known addresses • Minimal account recovery options 7 Confidential JAVELIN Understanding Wallets: Custodial Wallets Cryptocurrency meets investment service Private key stored by provider • Familiar experience for less sophisticated users • Easy to buy/sell currency • Vulnerable to traditional fraud tactics 8 Confidential JAVELIN Exploring the Other Wallet Types Different types of digital safes have their strengths and weaknesses Paper Hardware Multi-sig Wallets Wallets Wallets 9 Confidential JAVELIN Facing Today’s Fraud Threats What Criminals Love About Cryptocurrency Criminal interest in cryptocurrency has risen at the same pace as consumer adoption. “Immutable” transactions Pseudo-anonymity Weak wallet controls Maturing fraud tools 11 Confidential JAVELIN Human Behavior is the Weak Link, Not Technology Incidence of existing non-card fraud and account takeover, 2013-2017 3.0% 2.5% 2.0% Existing Non-Card Fraud 1.5% 1.0% 0.5% Percentage of consumers Account Takeover 0.0% 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 Source: Javelin Strategy & Research, 2018 12 Confidential JAVELIN Online Authentication is at a Crossroads Most commonly used authentication tools are also the most vulnerable HIGH ADOPTION, SIGNIFICANT RISK ROBUST FRAUD PREVENTION, LOW ADOPTION Passwords Biometrics Breaches, malware, Hardware limitations, social engineering, fallback authentication reuse KBA Non-SMS OTP Breaches, social User experience, engineering, social adoption challenges media SMS OTP Behaviometrics Malware, social Adoption, appropriate engineering, SS7, MNO use cases account takeover 13 Confidential JAVELIN Upfront Authentication is Strong… Authentication for browser/desktop portal among evaluated wallets Username and password 78% One-time password (Standalone app) 67% One-time password (SMS) 33% User-defined PIN 33% One-time password (Other) 22% Use of social media credentials 11% Hardware security key 11% One-time password (Email) 11% Biometrics (any) 0% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Percentage of Evaluated Wallets Source: Javelin Strategy & Research, 2018 14 14 Confidential JAVELIN But Step-Up Authentication is Lacking Pre-transaction authentication adoption among evaluated wallets User-defined PIN 36% One-time password (Standalone app) 15% Fingerprint scanning 14% One-time password (SMS) 14% User name and password 14% One-time password (Other) 7% One-time password (Email) 7% Other biometric 0% Hardware security key 0% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% Percentage of Evaluated Wallets Source: Javelin Strategy & Research, 2018 15 Confidential JAVELIN Mobile Phones Are Increasingly Under Attack Fraudulent new mobile phone accounts and account takeovers 400 Fraudulent new mobile phone accounts 380 344 350 Mobile phone account takeover 300 250 210 200 161 150 107 84 Thousands victims of Thousands 100 50 0 2015 2016 2017 Source: Javelin Strategy & Research, 2018 16 Confidential JAVELIN Fueling Cryptocurrency Theft Criminal creativity is being fueled by several factors influencing digital money- related crimes. Botnets: Just like they do in other areas of fraud, crooks are using enslaved armies of computers to systematically defeat the protections of cryptocurrency wallets. HTTPS Everywhere: Browsers are raising the bar for everyone – including criminals. Because of free and cheap certificates, it’s difficult to discern legitimate banking portals from phishing websites. Physical Theft: Even cryptocurrency holders using cold storage must be careful who they tell about their fortunes. There have been examples of hardware wallets being physically stolen from their owners. 17 Confidential JAVELIN The Future of Cryptocurrency Wallets Lines Blur Between Financial Institutions and Cryptocurrency Wallets Progressive players begin to move between worlds Cryptocurrency wallets encroach into financial …and vice versa. services… 19 Confidential JAVELIN Meeting Consumers’ Expectations There is a long way to go before wallet providers reach parity with financial institutions in fraud protection Authentication • Wallet providers have strong upfront authentication features, but weak step-up authentication gives fraudsters unrestricted access once they pass the front door. Alerts • While users may receive alerts for transactions or account activity, few wallet providers are willing to hold pending transactions for customer approval in the event of apparently suspicious activity. Liability Protection • With no legal liability safeguards, consumers have essentially no protection from loss in the event of fraud resulting from either provider-wide compromise or takeover or their individual wallet. 20 Confidential JAVELIN Threats to Custodial Wallet Providers Fraud mitigation functionality still has a long way to go for wallet providers Data Breaches: When these wallet providers systematically lose control of the private keys that protect their users’ cryptocurrency, money (unexpectedly) moves. Reputational Risks: An industry track record of hacks and exit scams drags down the reputation of even conscientious wallet providers. They require a strong communications strategy that plans for issues with customer relationships. Reliant Parties: As cryptocurrency moves mainstream, providers rely on payment networks and processors to help consumers move value into digital currency. Problems at these partners can create issues that wallet providers have to clean up. 21 Confidential JAVELIN Closing Thoughts 1 Cryptocurrency is Especially Attractive to Criminals. The immutability of transactions and pseudo-anonymity makes cryptocurrency wallets prime targets for crooks. Their rise in popularity among consumers comes as cybercriminals are already shifting more focus to compromising online accounts. 2 Conventional fraud tactics are easily repurposed to target cryptocurrency wallets. Phishing, credential stuffing, and mobile ATO are all well-honed tools for fraudsters in other parts of the economy. The rise of unique tactics such as abuse of advertising services and employing free, SSL certificates makes combatting fraud even harder. 3 Wallets have a long way to go before reaching parity with financial institutions. While progressive players on both sides of the market are making moves, the fraud prevention features at cryptocurrency wallets do not yet match consumers expectations for the protection they receive in financial services. 22 Confidential JAVELIN Q&A Session ? ? JAVELIN Thank you! Securing the Future of Cryptocurrency Wallets Webinar recording and slide deck will be available tomorrow in HUB, as well as email. Kyle Marchini Senior Analyst, Fraud Management For questions regarding access to Javelin research, please contact: [email protected] Sean Sposito For more information on this report, please visit: Analyst, Cybersecurity https://www.javelinstrategy.com/coverage- area/2018-cryptocurrency-wallet-safety- scorecard Al Pascual SVP, Research and Head of Fraud & Security © 2018 GA Javelin LLC, a Greenwich Associates LLC company. All rights reserved. No portion of these materials may be copied, reproduced, distributed or transmitted, electronically or otherwise, to external parties or publicly without the permission of GA Javelin LLC. Licensors may display or print the content for their internal use only, and may not sell, publish, distribute, re-transmit or otherwise provide access to the content of this report without permission. JAVELIN .
Recommended publications
  • Beauty Is Not in the Eye of the Beholder
    Insight Consumer and Wealth Management Digital Assets: Beauty Is Not in the Eye of the Beholder Parsing the Beauty from the Beast. Investment Strategy Group | June 2021 Sharmin Mossavar-Rahmani Chief Investment Officer Investment Strategy Group Goldman Sachs The co-authors give special thanks to: Farshid Asl Managing Director Matheus Dibo Shahz Khatri Vice President Vice President Brett Nelson Managing Director Michael Murdoch Vice President Jakub Duda Shep Moore-Berg Harm Zebregs Vice President Vice President Vice President Shivani Gupta Analyst Oussama Fatri Yousra Zerouali Vice President Analyst ISG material represents the views of ISG in Consumer and Wealth Management (“CWM”) of GS. It is not financial research or a product of GS Global Investment Research (“GIR”) and may vary significantly from those expressed by individual portfolio management teams within CWM, or other groups at Goldman Sachs. 2021 INSIGHT Dear Clients, There has been enormous change in the world of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology since we first wrote about it in 2017. The number of cryptocurrencies has increased from about 2,000, with a market capitalization of over $200 billion in late 2017, to over 8,000, with a market capitalization of about $1.6 trillion. For context, the market capitalization of global equities is about $110 trillion, that of the S&P 500 stocks is $35 trillion and that of US Treasuries is $22 trillion. Reported trading volume in cryptocurrencies, as represented by the two largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, has increased sixfold, from an estimated $6.8 billion per day in late 2017 to $48.6 billion per day in May 2021.1 This data is based on what is called “clean data” from Coin Metrics; the total reported trading volume is significantly higher, but much of it is artificially inflated.2,3 For context, trading volume on US equity exchanges doubled over the same period.
    [Show full text]
  • Pwc I 2Nd Global Crypto M&A and Fundraising Report
    2nd Global Crypto M&A and Fundraising Report April 2020 2 PwC I 2nd Global Crypto M&A and Fundraising Report Dear Clients and Friends, We are proud to launch the 2nd edition of our Global Crypto M&A and Fundraising Report. We hope that the market colour and insights from this report will be useful data points. We will continue to publish this report twice a year to enable you to monitor the ongoing trends in the crypto ecosystem. PwC has put together a “one stop shop” offering, focused on crypto services across our various lines of services in over 25 jurisdictions, including the most active crypto jurisdictions. Our goal is to service your needs in the best possible way leveraging the PwC network and allowing you to make your project a success. Our crypto clients include crypto exchanges, crypto investors, crypto asset managers, ICOs/IEOs/STOs/stable and asset backed tokens, traditional financial institutions entering the crypto space as well as governments, central banks, regulators and other policy makers looking at the crypto ecosystem. As part of our “one stop shop” offering, we provide an entire range of services to the crypto ecosystem including strategy, legal, regulatory, accounting, tax, governance, risk assurance, audit, cybersecurity, M&A advisory as well as capital raising. More details are available on our global crypto page as well as at the back of this report. 2nd Global Crypto M&A and Fundraising Report April 2020 PwC 2 3 PwC I 2nd Global Crypto M&A and Fundraising Report 5 Key takeaways when comparing 2018 vs 2019 There
    [Show full text]
  • Initial Coin Offerings: Financing Growth with Cryptocurrency Token
    Initial Coin Offerings: Financing Growth with Cryptocurrency Token Sales Sabrina T. Howell, Marina Niessner, and David Yermack⇤ June 21, 2018 Abstract Initial coin offerings (ICOs) are sales of blockchain-based digital tokens associated with specific platforms or assets. Since 2014 ICOs have emerged as a new financing instrument, with some parallels to IPOs, venture capital, and pre-sale crowdfunding. We examine the relationship between issuer characteristics and measures of success, with a focus on liquidity, using 453 ICOs that collectively raise $5.7 billion. We also employ propriety transaction data in a case study of Filecoin, one of the most successful ICOs. We find that liquidity and trading volume are higher when issuers offer voluntary disclosure, credibly commit to the project, and signal quality. s s ss s ss ss ss s ⇤NYU Stern and NBER; Yale SOM; NYU Stern, ECGI and NBER. Email: [email protected]. For helpful comments, we are grateful to Bruno Biais, Darrell Duffie, seminar participants at the OECD Paris Workshop on Digital Financial Assets, Erasmus University, and the Swedish House of Finance. We thank Protocol Labs and particularly Evan Miyazono and Juan Benet for providing data. Sabrina Howell thanks the Kauffman Foundation for financial support. We are also grateful to all of our research assistants, especially Jae Hyung (Fred) Kim. Part of this paper was written while David Yermack was a visiting professor at Erasmus University Rotterdam. 1Introduction Initial coin offerings (ICOs) may be a significant innovation in entrepreneurial finance. In an ICO, a blockchain-based venture raises capital by selling cryptographically secured digital assets, usually called “tokens.” These ventures often resemble the startups that conventionally finance themselves with angel or venture capital (VC) investment, though there are many scams, jokes, and tokens that have nothing to do with a new product or business.
    [Show full text]
  • Consent Order: HDR Global Trading Limited, Et Al
    Case 1:20-cv-08132-MKV Document 62 Filed 08/10/21 Page 1 of 22 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK USDC SDNY DOCUMENT ELECTRONICALLY FILED COMMODITY FUTURES TRADING DOC #: COMMISSION, DATE FILED: 8/10/2021 Plaintiff v. Case No. 1:20-cv-08132 HDR GLOBAL TRADING LIMITED, 100x Hon. Mary Kay Vyskocil HOLDINGS LIMITED, ABS GLOBAL TRADING LIMITED, SHINE EFFORT INC LIMITED, HDR GLOBAL SERVICES (BERMUDA) LIMITED, ARTHUR HAYES, BENJAMIN DELO, and SAMUEL REED, Defendants CONSENT ORDER FOR PERMANENT INJUNCTION, CIVIL MONETARY PENALTY, AND OTHER EQUITABLE RELIEF AGAINST DEFENDANTS HDR GLOBAL TRADING LIMITED, 100x HOLDINGS LIMITED, SHINE EFFORT INC LIMITED, and HDR GLOBAL SERVICES (BERMUDA) LIMITED I. INTRODUCTION On October 1, 2020, Plaintiff Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“Commission” or “CFTC”) filed a Complaint against Defendants HDR Global Trading Limited (“HDR”), 100x Holdings Limited (100x”), ABS Global Trading Limited (“ABS”), Shine Effort Inc Limited (“Shine”), and HDR Global Services (Bermuda) Limited (“HDR Services”), all doing business as “BitMEX” (collectively “BitMEX”) as well as BitMEX’s co-founders Arthur Hayes (“Hayes”), Benjamin Delo (“Delo”), and Samuel Reed (“Reed”), (collectively “Defendants”), seeking injunctive and other equitable relief, as well as the imposition of civil penalties, for violations of the Commodity Exchange Act (“Act”), 7 U.S.C. §§ 1–26 (2018), and the Case 1:20-cv-08132-MKV Document 62 Filed 08/10/21 Page 2 of 22 Commission’s Regulations (“Regulations”) promulgated thereunder, 17 C.F.R. pts. 1–190 (2020). (“Complaint,” ECF No. 1.)1 II. CONSENTS AND AGREEMENTS To effect settlement of all charges alleged in the Complaint against Defendants HDR, 100x, ABS, Shine, and HDR Services (“Settling Defendants”) without a trial on the merits or any further judicial proceedings, Settling Defendants: 1.
    [Show full text]
  • Cryptocurrency: the Economics of Money and Selected Policy Issues
    Cryptocurrency: The Economics of Money and Selected Policy Issues Updated April 9, 2020 Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov R45427 SUMMARY R45427 Cryptocurrency: The Economics of Money and April 9, 2020 Selected Policy Issues David W. Perkins Cryptocurrencies are digital money in electronic payment systems that generally do not require Specialist in government backing or the involvement of an intermediary, such as a bank. Instead, users of the Macroeconomic Policy system validate payments using certain protocols. Since the 2008 invention of the first cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies have proliferated. In recent years, they experienced a rapid increase and subsequent decrease in value. One estimate found that, as of March 2020, there were more than 5,100 different cryptocurrencies worth about $231 billion. Given this rapid growth and volatility, cryptocurrencies have drawn the attention of the public and policymakers. A particularly notable feature of cryptocurrencies is their potential to act as an alternative form of money. Historically, money has either had intrinsic value or derived value from government decree. Using money electronically generally has involved using the private ledgers and systems of at least one trusted intermediary. Cryptocurrencies, by contrast, generally employ user agreement, a network of users, and cryptographic protocols to achieve valid transfers of value. Cryptocurrency users typically use a pseudonymous address to identify each other and a passcode or private key to make changes to a public ledger in order to transfer value between accounts. Other computers in the network validate these transfers. Through this use of blockchain technology, cryptocurrency systems protect their public ledgers of accounts against manipulation, so that users can only send cryptocurrency to which they have access, thus allowing users to make valid transfers without a centralized, trusted intermediary.
    [Show full text]
  • Blockchain & Cryptocurrency Regulation
    Blockchain & Cryptocurrency Regulation Third Edition Contributing Editor: Josias N. Dewey Global Legal Insights Blockchain & Cryptocurrency Regulation 2021, Third Edition Contributing Editor: Josias N. Dewey Published by Global Legal Group GLOBAL LEGAL INSIGHTS – BLOCKCHAIN & CRYPTOCURRENCY REGULATION 2021, THIRD EDITION Contributing Editor Josias N. Dewey, Holland & Knight LLP Head of Production Suzie Levy Senior Editor Sam Friend Sub Editor Megan Hylton Consulting Group Publisher Rory Smith Chief Media Officer Fraser Allan We are extremely grateful for all contributions to this edition. Special thanks are reserved for Josias N. Dewey of Holland & Knight LLP for all of his assistance. Published by Global Legal Group Ltd. 59 Tanner Street, London SE1 3PL, United Kingdom Tel: +44 207 367 0720 / URL: www.glgroup.co.uk Copyright © 2020 Global Legal Group Ltd. All rights reserved No photocopying ISBN 978-1-83918-077-4 ISSN 2631-2999 This publication is for general information purposes only. It does not purport to provide comprehensive full legal or other advice. Global Legal Group Ltd. and the contributors accept no responsibility for losses that may arise from reliance upon information contained in this publication. This publication is intended to give an indication of legal issues upon which you may need advice. Full legal advice should be taken from a qualified professional when dealing with specific situations. The information contained herein is accurate as of the date of publication. Printed and bound by TJ International, Trecerus Industrial Estate, Padstow, Cornwall, PL28 8RW October 2020 PREFACE nother year has passed and virtual currency and other blockchain-based digital assets continue to attract the attention of policymakers across the globe.
    [Show full text]
  • Blockchain and Cryptocurrency in Africa a Comparative Summary of the Reception and Regulation of Blockchain and Cryptocurrency in Africa
    Blockchain and Cryptocurrency in Africa A comparative summary of the reception and regulation of Blockchain and Cryptocurrency in Africa 2018 Baker McKenzie, Johannesburg IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: The material in this report is of the nature of general comment only. It is not offered as legal advice on any specific issue or matter and should not be taken as such. Readers should refrain from acting on the basis of any discussion contained in this report without obtaining specific legal advice on the particular facts and circumstances at issue. While the authors have made every effort to provide accurate and up-to-date information on laws and policy, these matters are continuously subject to change. Furthermore, the application of these laws depends on the particular facts and circumstances of each situation, and therefore readers should consult their lawyer before taking any action. Information contained herein is as at November 2018. CONTENTS PREFACE ............................................................................................................................................1 GEOGRAPHICAL OVERVIEW ....................................................................................................... 2 COUNTRY PROFILES ..................................................................................................................... 3 1. Botswana ................................................................................................................................................................... 3 2. Ghana .........................................................................................................................................................................4
    [Show full text]
  • The Bitcoin Trading Ecosystem
    ArcaneReport(PrintReady).qxp 21/07/2021 14:43 Page 1 THE INSTITUTIONAL CRYPTO CURRENCY EXCHANGE INSIDE FRONT COVER: BLANK ArcaneReport(PrintReady).qxp 21/07/2021 14:43 Page 3 The Bitcoin Trading Ecosystem Arcane Research LMAX Digital Arcane Research is a part of Arcane Crypto, bringing LMAX Digital is the leading institutional spot data-driven analysis and research to the cryptocurrency exchange, run by the LMAX Group, cryptocurrency space. After launch in August 2019, which also operates several leading FCA regulated Arcane Research has become a trusted brand, trading venues for FX, metals and indices. Based on helping clients strengthen their credibility and proven, proprietary technology from LMAX Group, visibility through research reports and analysis. In LMAX Digital allows global institutions to acquire, addition, we regularly publish reports, weekly market trade and hold the most liquid digital assets, Bitcoin, updates and articles to educate and share insights. Ethereum, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash and XRP, safely and securely. Arcane Crypto develops and invests in projects, focusing on bitcoin and digital assets. Arcane Trading with all the largest institutions globally, operates a portfolio of businesses, spanning the LMAX Digital is a primary price discovery venue, value chain for digital nance. As a group, Arcane streaming real-time market data to the industry’s deliver services targeting payments, investment, and leading indices and analytics platforms, enhancing trading, in addition to a media and research leg. the quality of market information available to investors and enabling a credible overview of the Arcane has the ambition to become a leading player spot crypto currency market. in the digital assets space by growing the existing businesses, invest in cutting edge projects, and LMAX Digital is regulated by the Gibraltar Financial through acquisitions and consolidation.
    [Show full text]
  • An Investigative Study of Cryptocurrency Abuses in the Dark Web
    Cybercriminal Minds: An investigative study of cryptocurrency abuses in the Dark Web Seunghyeon Leeyz Changhoon Yoonz Heedo Kangy Yeonkeun Kimy Yongdae Kimy Dongsu Hany Sooel Sony Seungwon Shinyz yKAIST zS2W LAB Inc. {seunghyeon, kangheedo, yeonk, yongdaek, dhan.ee, sl.son, claude}@kaist.ac.kr {cy}@s2wlab.com Abstract—The Dark Web is notorious for being a major known as one of the major drug trading sites [13], [22], and distribution channel of harmful content as well as unlawful goods. WannaCry malware, one of the most notorious ransomware, Perpetrators have also used cryptocurrencies to conduct illicit has actively used the Dark Web to operate C&C servers [50]. financial transactions while hiding their identities. The limited Cryptocurrency also presents a similar situation. Apart from coverage and outdated data of the Dark Web in previous studies a centralized server, cryptocurrencies (e.g., Bitcoin [58] and motivated us to conduct an in-depth investigative study to under- Ethereum [72]) enable people to conduct peer-to-peer trades stand how perpetrators abuse cryptocurrencies in the Dark Web. We designed and implemented MFScope, a new framework which without central authorities, and thus it is hard to identify collects Dark Web data, extracts cryptocurrency information, and trading peers. analyzes their usage characteristics on the Dark Web. Specifically, Similar to the case of the Dark Web, cryptocurrencies MFScope collected more than 27 million dark webpages and also provide benefits to our society in that they can redesign extracted around 10 million unique cryptocurrency addresses for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Monero. It then classified their usages to financial trading mechanisms and thus motivate new business identify trades of illicit goods and traced cryptocurrency money models, but are also adopted in financial crimes (e.g., money flows, to reveal black money operations on the Dark Web.
    [Show full text]
  • Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies Law Enforcement Investigative Guide
    2018-46528652 Regional Organized Crime Information Center Special Research Report Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies Law Enforcement Investigative Guide Ref # 8091-4ee9-ae43-3d3759fc46fb 2018-46528652 Regional Organized Crime Information Center Special Research Report Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies Law Enforcement Investigative Guide verybody’s heard about Bitcoin by now. How the value of this new virtual currency wildly swings with the latest industry news or even rumors. Criminals use Bitcoin for money laundering and other Enefarious activities because they think it can’t be traced and can be used with anonymity. How speculators are making millions dealing in this trend or fad that seems more like fanciful digital technology than real paper money or currency. Some critics call Bitcoin a scam in and of itself, a new high-tech vehicle for bilking the masses. But what are the facts? What exactly is Bitcoin and how is it regulated? How can criminal investigators track its usage and use transactions as evidence of money laundering or other financial crimes? Is Bitcoin itself fraudulent? Ref # 8091-4ee9-ae43-3d3759fc46fb 2018-46528652 Bitcoin Basics Law Enforcement Needs to Know About Cryptocurrencies aw enforcement will need to gain at least a basic Bitcoins was determined by its creator (a person Lunderstanding of cyptocurrencies because or entity known only as Satoshi Nakamoto) and criminals are using cryptocurrencies to launder money is controlled by its inherent formula or algorithm. and make transactions contrary to law, many of them The total possible number of Bitcoins is 21 million, believing that cryptocurrencies cannot be tracked or estimated to be reached in the year 2140.
    [Show full text]
  • Transparent and Collaborative Proof-Of-Work Consensus
    StrongChain: Transparent and Collaborative Proof-of-Work Consensus Pawel Szalachowski, Daniël Reijsbergen, and Ivan Homoliak, Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD); Siwei Sun, Institute of Information Engineering and DCS Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity19/presentation/szalachowski This paper is included in the Proceedings of the 28th USENIX Security Symposium. August 14–16, 2019 • Santa Clara, CA, USA 978-1-939133-06-9 Open access to the Proceedings of the 28th USENIX Security Symposium is sponsored by USENIX. StrongChain: Transparent and Collaborative Proof-of-Work Consensus Pawel Szalachowski1 Daniel¨ Reijsbergen1 Ivan Homoliak1 Siwei Sun2;∗ 1Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) 2Institute of Information Engineering and DCS Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences Abstract a cryptographically-protected append-only list [2] is intro- duced. This list consists of transactions grouped into blocks Bitcoin is the most successful cryptocurrency so far. This and is usually referred to as a blockchain. Every active pro- is mainly due to its novel consensus algorithm, which is tocol participant (called a miner) collects transactions sent based on proof-of-work combined with a cryptographically- by users and tries to solve a computationally-hard puzzle in protected data structure and a rewarding scheme that incen- order to be able to write to the blockchain (the process of tivizes nodes to participate. However, despite its unprece- solving the puzzle is called mining). When a valid solution dented success Bitcoin suffers from many inefficiencies. For is found, it is disseminated along with the transactions that instance, Bitcoin’s consensus mechanism has been proved to the miner wishes to append.
    [Show full text]
  • Regulating Storage Overhead in Existing Pow-Based Blockchains
    Regulating Storage Overhead in Existing PoW-based Blockchains Frederik Armknecht Jens-Matthias Bohli* University of Mannheim Mannheim University of Applied Sciences Germany Germany [email protected] [email protected] Ghassan O. Karame Wenting Li NEC Laboratories Europe NEC Laboratories Europe Germany Germany [email protected] [email protected] ABSTRACT so far. This resulted in a sharp variance in the number of Proof of Work (PoW) blockchains regulate the frequency and blockchain replicas over time. Namely, during the early years security of extensions to the blockchain in a decentralized of PoW blockchains, every miner was also a \full-node" and manner by adjusting the difficulty in the network. However, stored a full copy of the blockchain. As a result, the blockchain analogous decentralized measures to regulate the replica- witnessed an unprecedented level of replication (>200,000 tion level of the associated transactions and blocks data are replica) until early 2014 [14, 15]. Nowadays, the current completely missing so far. We argue that such measures are difficulty level of PoW mining is prohibitively high enough required as well. On the one hand, the smaller the number that miners do not have incentives to operate solo. Instead, of replicas, the higher the vulnerability of the system against joining a mining pool emerges as an attractive option for compromises and DoS-attacks. On the other hand, the larger miners to receive a portion of the block reward on a consistent the number of replicas, the higher the storage overhead, and basis. Here, workers do not connect directly to the blockchain; the higher the operational blockchain cost are.
    [Show full text]