Exploiting Transaction Accumulation and Double Spends for Topology Inference in Bitcoin

Bitcoin relies on a peer-to-peer network for communication between participants. Knowledge of the network topology is of scientific interest but can also facilitate attacks on the users’ anonymity and the system’s availability. We present two approaches for inferring the network topology and evaluate them in simulations and in real-world experiments in the Bitcoin testnet. The first approach exploits the accumulation of multiple transactions before their announcement to other peers. Despite the general feasibility of the approach, simulation and experimental results indicate a low inference quality. The second approach exploits the fact that double spending transactions are dropped by clients. Experimental results show that inferring the neighbors of a specific peer is possible with a precision of 71% and a recall of 87% at low cost.