Clustering Deposit and Withdrawal Activity in Tornado Cash: A Cross-Chain Analysis
Fuente:
arXiv
Guardado en:
| Autores principales: | , , |
|---|---|
| Formato: | Preprint |
| Publicado: |
2025
|
| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | |
| Etiquetas: |
Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
|
| _version_ | 1866918207971917824 |
|---|---|
| author | Cristodaro, Raffaele Kraner, Benjamin Tessone, Claudio J. |
| author_facet | Cristodaro, Raffaele Kraner, Benjamin Tessone, Claudio J. |
| contents | Tornado Cash is a decentralised mixer that uses cryptographic techniques to sever the on-chain trail between depositors and withdrawers. In practice, however, its anonymity can be undermined by user behaviour and operational quirks. We conduct the first cross-chain empirical study of Tornado Cash activity on Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain, and Polygon, introducing three clustering heuristics-(i) address-reuse, (ii) transactional-linkage, and (iii) a novel first-in-first-out (FIFO) temporal-matching rule. Together, these heuristics reconnect deposits to withdrawals and deanonymise a substantial share of recipients. Our analysis shows that 5.1 - 12.6% of withdrawals can already be traced to their originating deposits through address reuse and transactional linkage heuristics. Adding our novel First-In-First-Out (FIFO) temporal-matching heuristic lifts the linkage rate by a further 15 - 22 percentage points. Statistical tests confirm that these FIFO matches are highly unlikely to occur by chance. Comparable leakage across Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain, and Polygon indicates chain-agnostic user misbehaviour, rather than chain-specific protocol flaws. These results expose how quickly cryptographic guarantees can unravel in everyday use, underscoring the need for both disciplined user behaviour and privacy-aware protocol design. In total, our heuristics link over $2.3 billion in Tornado Cash withdrawals to identifiable deposits, exposing significant cracks in practical anonymity. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_09433 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Clustering Deposit and Withdrawal Activity in Tornado Cash: A Cross-Chain Analysis Cristodaro, Raffaele Kraner, Benjamin Tessone, Claudio J. Cryptography and Security Emerging Technologies Tornado Cash is a decentralised mixer that uses cryptographic techniques to sever the on-chain trail between depositors and withdrawers. In practice, however, its anonymity can be undermined by user behaviour and operational quirks. We conduct the first cross-chain empirical study of Tornado Cash activity on Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain, and Polygon, introducing three clustering heuristics-(i) address-reuse, (ii) transactional-linkage, and (iii) a novel first-in-first-out (FIFO) temporal-matching rule. Together, these heuristics reconnect deposits to withdrawals and deanonymise a substantial share of recipients. Our analysis shows that 5.1 - 12.6% of withdrawals can already be traced to their originating deposits through address reuse and transactional linkage heuristics. Adding our novel First-In-First-Out (FIFO) temporal-matching heuristic lifts the linkage rate by a further 15 - 22 percentage points. Statistical tests confirm that these FIFO matches are highly unlikely to occur by chance. Comparable leakage across Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain, and Polygon indicates chain-agnostic user misbehaviour, rather than chain-specific protocol flaws. These results expose how quickly cryptographic guarantees can unravel in everyday use, underscoring the need for both disciplined user behaviour and privacy-aware protocol design. In total, our heuristics link over $2.3 billion in Tornado Cash withdrawals to identifiable deposits, exposing significant cracks in practical anonymity. |
| title | Clustering Deposit and Withdrawal Activity in Tornado Cash: A Cross-Chain Analysis |
| topic | Cryptography and Security Emerging Technologies |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.09433 |