Social Networks are Divulging Your Identity behind Crypto Addresses

TL;DR

This paper investigates how social network data can potentially de-anonymize cryptocurrency addresses, demonstrating privacy risks and providing a tool for address retrieval based on social media information.

Contribution

It presents an analysis of privacy leakage risks by linking social network profiles to cryptocurrency addresses and introduces a retrieval application for this purpose.

Findings

Social network data can reveal the identity behind crypto addresses.

A retrieval tool was developed to associate social media accounts with Ethereum addresses.

The study highlights privacy vulnerabilities in cryptocurrency usage on social platforms.

Abstract

Cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, are becoming increasingly prevalent mainly due to their anonymity, decentralization, transparency, and security. However, the completely public ledger makes the trace and analysis of each account possible as long as the identity behind the public address is revealed. Theoretically, social networks could make that happen when addresses are posted on social network platforms using accounts containing personal information. To verify such a possibility, we have collected public data from two major platforms, i.e. Twitter and Reddit, aiming to find potential privacy leakage behind the ETH public address. In the end, an easy-to-use retrieval application is also built for a better illustration.