Exploring the Monero Peer-to-Peer Network

【Author】 Cao, Tong; Yu, Jiangshan; Decouchant, Jeremie; Luo, Xiapu; Verissimo, Paulo

【Source】FINANCIAL CRYPTOGRAPHY AND DATA SECURITY, FC 2020

【Abstract】As of September 2019, Monero is the most capitalized privacy-preserving cryptocurrency, and is ranked tenth among all cryptocurrencies. Monero's on-chain data privacy guarantees, i.e., how mixins are selected in each transaction, have been extensively studied. However, despite Monero's prominence, the network of peers running Monero clients has not been analyzed. Such analysis is of prime importance, since potential vulnerabilities in the peer-to-peer network may lead to attacks on the blockchain's safety (e.g., by isolating a set of nodes) and on users' privacy (e.g., tracing transactions flow in the network). This paper provides the first step study on understanding Monero's peer-to-peer (P2P) network. In particular, we deconstruct Monero's P2P protocol based on its source code, and develop a toolset to explore Monero's network, which allows us to infer its topology, size, node distribution, and node connectivity. During our experiments, we collected 510GB of raw data, from which we extracted 21,678 IP addresses of Monero nodes distributed in 970 autonomous systems. We show that Monero's network is highly centralized-13.2% of the nodes collectively maintain 82.86% of the network connections. We have identified approximately 2,758 active nodes per day, which is 68.7% higher than the number reported by the MoneroHash mining pool. We also identified all concurrent outgoing connections maintained by Monero nodes with very high probability (on average 97.98% for nodes with less than 250 outgoing connections, and 93.79% for nodes with more connections).

【Keywords】

【标题】探索Monero对等网络

【摘要】截至2019年9月，Monero是资本化程度最高的高匿名加密货币，在所有加密货币中排名第十。Monero的链上数据隐私保证，即如何在每个事务中选择混合，已得到广泛研究。然而，尽管Monero很突出，但尚未分析运行Monero客户端的对等网络。这种分析至关重要，因为对等网络中的潜在漏洞可能会导致对区块链安全（例如，通过隔离一组节点）和用户隐私（例如，跟踪网络中的交易流）的攻击。本文提供了理解Monero的对等（P2P）网络的第一步研究。特别是，我们基于其源代码解构了Monero的P2P协议，并开发了一个工具集来探索Monero的网络，该工具集允许我们推断其拓扑、大小、节点分布和节点连接。在我们的实验中，我们收集了510GB的原始数据，从中提取了分布在970个自治系统中的Monero节点的21678个IP地址。我们表明，Monero的网络高度集中，13.2%的节点共同维持82.86%的网络连接。我们每天发现约2758个活动节点，比MoneroHash采矿池报告的数量高68.7%。我们还以非常高的概率识别了由Monero节点维护的所有并发传出连接（对于传出连接少于250个的节点，平均为97.98%，对于连接更多的节点，平均为93.79%）。

【发表时间】2020

【收录时间】2022-07-16

【文献类型】Proceedings Paper

【论文大主题】加密货币

【论文小主题】匿名性与安全

【翻译者】林定康