Anonymity in Cryptocurrencies

Hulya Boydas Hazar ()
Additional contact information
Hulya Boydas Hazar: Istanbul Aydın University

A chapter in Eurasian Economic Perspectives, 2020, pp 171-178 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Cryptocurrencies are defined as anonymous digital currencies. It is widely assumed that the real-world identities of the persons who engage in cryptocurrency transactions are secret and will remain secret. Digital signatures serve as identities of the parties involved in cryptocurrency transactions. They are essentially composed of a pair of keys, the secret key and the public key, which are used for signing transactions. These keys are issued as many times as needed thus creating different identities for the same person. Since transactions are recorded with these pseudo names, it is thought that the real identities may not be linked to the transactions. Unlinkability has to be achieved for complete anonymity. However, recent studies show that real-life identities can be linked to addresses of these cryptocurrencies and transactions which use them. Therefore, it is safe to say that most cryptocurrencies are pseudonymous rather than anonymous. In this chapter, the problem with anonymity and its implications in accounting will be discussed. In addition to this, protocols and services, which make it harder or even impossible to link addresses and transactions to their senders and recipients, will be reviewed.

Keywords: Cryptocurrency; Blockchain; Bitcoin; Altcoins; Anonymity; Pseudonymity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:eurchp:978-3-030-53536-0_12

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783030535360

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-53536-0_12

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Eurasian Studies in Business and Economics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().