2023/08/03 by Alex Kovács, Kovács, Alex, István András Seres +1 · 1 citation
Computer Science · #Blockchain Technology Applications and Security #Cryptography and Data Security #Cryptography and Security (cs.CR) #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Privacy-Preserving Technologies in Data
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2308.01703
openalex publication_date 2023/08/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Stealth addresses are a privacy-enhancing technology that provides recipient anonymity on blockchains. In this work, we investigate the recipient anonymity and unlinkability guarantees of Umbra, the most widely used implementation of the stealth address scheme on Ethereum, and its three off-chain scalability solutions, e.g., Arbitrum, Optimism, and Polygon. We define and evaluate four heuristics to uncover the real recipients of stealth payments. We find that for the majority of Umbra payments, it is straightforward to establish the recipient, hence nullifying the benefits of using Umbra. Specifically, we find the real recipient of 48.5%, 25.8%, 65.7%, and 52.6% of all Umbra transactions on the Ethereum main net, Polygon, Arbitrum, and Optimism networks, respectively. Finally, we suggest easily implementable countermeasures to evade our deanonymization and linking attacks.