2018/09/14 by Martin Harrigan, Lei Shi, Harrigan, Martin +3 · 1 citation
Computer Science · #Cryptography and Security (cs.CR) #FOS: Computer and information sciences #cs.CR
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1809.05360
17 pages, 7 figures
arxiv created 2018/09/14 · arxiv updated 2018/09/17
Airdrops are a popular method of distributing cryptocurrencies and tokens. While often considered risk-free from the point of view of recipients, their impact on privacy is easily overlooked. We examine the Clam airdrop of 2014, a forerunner to many of today's airdrops, that distributed a new cryptocurrency to every address with a non-dust balance on the Bitcoin, Litecoin and Dogecoin blockchains. Specifically, we use address clustering to try to construct the one-to-many mappings from entities to addresses on the blockchains, individually and in combination. We show that the sharing of addresses between the blockchains is a privacy risk. We identify instances where an entity has disclosed information about their address ownership on the Bitcoin, Litecoin and Dogecoin blockchains, exclusively via their activity on the Clam blockchain.