Cited by 1,116Blockchain Technology Applications and SecurityCryptography and Data SecurityBlockchain Technology in Education and Learning

A Survey on Security and Privacy Issues of Bitcoin

Open access
Conti, Mauro, Sandeep Kumar, E., Lal, Chhagan, Ruj, Sushmita·2018·IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials

Abstract

Bitcoin is a popular cryptocurrency that records all transactions in a distributed append-only public ledger called blockchain. The security of Bitcoin heavily relies on the incentive-compatible proof-of-work (PoW) based distributed consensus protocol, which is run by the network nodes called miners. In exchange for the incentive, the miners are expected to maintain the blockchain honestly. Since its launch in 2009, Bitcoin economy has grown at an enormous rate, and it is now worth about 150 billions of dollars. This exponential growth in the market value of bitcoins motivate adversaries to exploit weaknesses for profit, and researchers to discover new vulnerabilities in the system, propose countermeasures, and predict upcoming trends. In this paper, we present a systematic survey that covers the security and privacy aspects of Bitcoin. We start by giving an overview of the Bitcoin system and its major components along with their functionality and interactions within the system. We review the existing vulnerabilities in Bitcoin and its major underlying technologies such as blockchain and PoW-based consensus protocol. These vulnerabilities lead to the execution of various security threats to the standard functionality of Bitcoin. We then investigate the feasibility and robustness of the state-of-the-art security solutions. Additionally, we discuss the current anonymity considerations in Bitcoin and the privacy-related threats to Bitcoin users along with the analysis of the existing privacy-preserving solutions. Finally, we summarize the critical open challenges, and we suggest directions for future research towards provisioning stringent security and privacy solutions for Bitcoin.

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Crossref · 10.1109/comst.2018.2842460

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  • There are review papers on security and privacy in distributed ledgers but they are mainly focused on bitcoin or cryptocurrencies.

    “Besides, there are some other review papers on security and privacy in distributed ledgers such as [29], but they are mainly focused on bitcoin [30] or cryptocurrencies.”
  • If a mining pool owns more than 50% of the network's computing power, then it is likely that those miners would be able to prevent the validation of proposed transactions, and consequently stop the transactions between users.

    “If a mining pool owns more than 50% of the network's computing power, then it is likely that those miners would be able to prevent the validation of proposed transactions, and consequently stop the transactions between users [73].”
  • Such IIoT nodes commonly route their data through gateways by using non-P2P protocols like MQTT or by making use of a fog or edge computing infrastructure.

    “Due to this reason, such a kind of IIoT nodes commonly route their data through gateways by using non-P2P protocols like MQTT [30] or by making use of a fog [31] or edge computing infrastructure [32].”

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5 of the 173 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 5

  1. [74][74] M. Rosenfeld, 'Mining pools reward methods,' Presentation at Bitcoin 2013 Conference , 2013. -
  2. [92][92] G. Bissias, A. P. Ozisik, B. N. Levine, and M. Liberatore, 'Sybilresistant mixing for bitcoin,' in Proceedings of the 13th Workshop on Privacy in the Electronic Society , ser. WPES '14. ACM, 2014, pp. 149-158. -
  3. [113][113] G. O. Karame, E. Androulaki, and S. Capkun, 'Double-spending fast payments in bitcoin,' in Proceedings of the 2012 ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security , ser. CCS '12. ACM, 2012, pp. 906-917. -
  4. [140][140] J. H. Ziegeldorf, F. Grossmann, M. Henze, N. Inden, and K. Wehrle, 'Coinparty: Secure multi-party mixing of bitcoins,' in Proceedings of the 5th ACM Conference on Data and Application Security and Privacy , ser. CODASPY '15. ACM, 2015, pp. 75-86. -
  5. [148][148] H. Corrigan-Gibbs and B. Ford, 'Dissent: Accountable anonymous group messaging,' in Proceedings of the 17th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security , ser. CCS'10. ACM, 2010, pp. 340-350. -

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Authors
Conti, M., Sandeep Kumar, E., Lal, C., & Ruj, S.
Affiliations
  • University of Padua (IT)
  • Manipal University Jaipur (IN)
  • Indian Statistical Institute (IN)
Venue
IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials
Published
2018
Volume
20
Issue
4
Pages
3416-3452
ISSN
  • 1553-877X (ISSN-L)
  • 2373-745X
OpenAlex
W2624307925
Cited by
1,116
References
173
Citations by year
2026: 84 · 2025: 125 · 2024: 94 · 2023: 135 · 2022: 145 · 2021: 164 · 2020: 160 · 2019: 137 · 2018: 67 · 2017: 4 · 2013: 1
FWCI
213.02
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials (publishedVersion)
  • arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
  • Padua Research Archive (University of Padova) (submittedVersion)
  • arXiv (Cornell University)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Cryptography and Data Security
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Blockchain Technology in Education and Learning
Keywords
Bitcoin, cryptocurrency security, blockchain, proof-of-work, distributed consensus, mining, vulnerability (computer security), anonymity, privacy risks, security countermeasures

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