Deanonymizing Bitcoin Transactions via Network Traffic Analysis with Semi-supervised Learning

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Zhang, Shihan, Han, Bing, Tian, Chuanyong, Shi, Ruisheng, Lan, Lina, Wang, Qin
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866918395259125760
author Zhang, Shihan
Han, Bing
Tian, Chuanyong
Shi, Ruisheng
Lan, Lina
Wang, Qin
author_facet Zhang, Shihan
Han, Bing
Tian, Chuanyong
Shi, Ruisheng
Lan, Lina
Wang, Qin
contents Privacy protection mechanisms are a fundamental aspect of security in cryptocurrency systems, particularly in decentralized networks such as Bitcoin. Although Bitcoin addresses are not directly associated with real-world identities, this does not fully guarantee user privacy. Various deanonymization solutions have been proposed, with network layer deanonymization attacks being especially prominent. However, existing approaches often exhibit limitations such as low precision. In this paper, we propose \textit{NTSSL}, a novel and efficient transaction deanonymization method that integrates network traffic analysis with semi-supervised learning. We use unsupervised learning algorithms to generate pseudo-labels to achieve comparable performance with lower costs. Then, we introduce \textit{NTSSL+}, a cross-layer collaborative analysis integrating transaction clustering results to further improve accuracy. Experimental results demonstrate a substantial performance improvement, 1.6 times better than the existing approach using machining learning.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_17261
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Deanonymizing Bitcoin Transactions via Network Traffic Analysis with Semi-supervised Learning
Zhang, Shihan
Han, Bing
Tian, Chuanyong
Shi, Ruisheng
Lan, Lina
Wang, Qin
Cryptography and Security
Privacy protection mechanisms are a fundamental aspect of security in cryptocurrency systems, particularly in decentralized networks such as Bitcoin. Although Bitcoin addresses are not directly associated with real-world identities, this does not fully guarantee user privacy. Various deanonymization solutions have been proposed, with network layer deanonymization attacks being especially prominent. However, existing approaches often exhibit limitations such as low precision. In this paper, we propose \textit{NTSSL}, a novel and efficient transaction deanonymization method that integrates network traffic analysis with semi-supervised learning. We use unsupervised learning algorithms to generate pseudo-labels to achieve comparable performance with lower costs. Then, we introduce \textit{NTSSL+}, a cross-layer collaborative analysis integrating transaction clustering results to further improve accuracy. Experimental results demonstrate a substantial performance improvement, 1.6 times better than the existing approach using machining learning.
title Deanonymizing Bitcoin Transactions via Network Traffic Analysis with Semi-supervised Learning
topic Cryptography and Security
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.17261