Analyzing the peeling chain patterns on the Bitcoin blockchain
Yanan Gong, K. P. Chow, Siu Ming Yiu, Hing Fung Ting
Abstract
Bitcoin is a widely used decentralized cryptocurrency. The proportion of Bitcoin transactions used for illegal activities is increasing. Mixing services are commonly applied to enhance anonymity and make transaction records more challenging to follow and analyze. The current research on peeling chains is generally based on heuristic algorithms to identify change addresses. However, due to the characteristics and limitations of the Bitcoin blockchain, there is no such ground truth to ensure the accuracy of each derived change address. This research analyzes the peeling chain patterns based on self-change addresses. The use of self-change addresses implies that the input address and the address used for receiving the change are controlled by the same entity. Also, each chain's transaction details and generated chain parameters are further verified for more precise results. Combining the two methods ensures the accuracy of the extracted peeling chains to some extent. And the corresponding behavior pattern of the extracted chains is studied.