D6.2 Altcoins – Alternatives to Bitcoin and Their Increasing Presence In
Ref. Ares(2018)1599225 - 22/03/2018 RAMSES Internet Forensic platform for tracking the money flow of financially-motivated malware H2020 - 700326 D6.2 Altcoins: Alternatives to Bitcoin and their increasing presence in Malware-related Cybercrime Lead Authors: Darren Hurley-Smith (UNIKENT), Julio Hernandez-Castro (UNIKENT) With contributions from: Edward Cartwright (UNIKENT), Anna Stepanova (UNIKENT) Reviewers: Luis Javier Garcia Villalba (UCM) Deliverable nature: Report (R) Dissemination level: Public (PU) (Confidentiality) Contractual delivery date: 31/08/2017 Actual delivery date: 31/08/2017 Version: 1.0 Total number of pages: 36 Keywords: Cryptocurrency, altcoin, malware, darknet market, privacy Abstract Bitcoin is a relatively well-known cryptocurrency, a digital token representing value. It uses a blockchain, a distributed ledger formed of blocks which represent a network of computers agreeing that transactions have occurred, to provide a ledger of sorts. This technology is not unique to Bitcoin, many so-called ‘altcoins’ now exist. These alternative coins provide their own services, be it as a store of value with improved transactions (lower fees, higher speed), or additional privacy. Malware and Dark Net Market (DNM) operators have used Bitcoin to facilitate pseudo-anonymous extraction of value from their victims and customers. However, several high-profile arrests have been made using Bitcoin transaction graphing methods, proving that the emphasis is on the pseudo part of pseudo-anonymity. Altcoins specialising in masking the users’ identity – Monero, ZCash, and Dash – are therefore of interest as the next potential coins of choice for criminals. Ethereum, being the second largest crypto-currencies and imminently implementing its own privacy features, is also of interest.
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