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When the Crypto in Cryptocurrencies Breaks: Bitcoin Security under Broken Primitives

journal contribution
posted on 2023-11-29, 18:07 authored by Ilias Giechaskiel, Cas CremersCas Cremers, Kasper B. Rasmussen
Digital currencies such as Bitcoin rely on cryptographic primitives to operate. However, past experience shows that cryptographic primitives do not last forever: increased computational power and advanced cryptanalysis cause primitives to break and motivate the development of new ones. It is therefore crucial for maintaining trust in a cryptocurrency to anticipate such breakage. We present the first systematic analysis of the effect of broken primitives on Bitcoin. We analyze the ways in which Bitcoin’s core cryptographic building blocks can break and the subsequent effect on the main Bitcoin security guarantees. Our analysis reveals a wide range of possible effects depending on the primitive and type of breakage, ranging from minor privacy violations to a complete breakdown of the currency. Our results lead to several suggestions for the Bitcoin migration plans and insights for other cryptocurrencies in case of broken or weakened cryptographic primitives.

History

Preferred Citation

Ilias Giechaskiel, Cas Cremers and Kasper Rasmussen. When the Crypto in Cryptocurrencies Breaks: Bitcoin Security under Broken Primitives. In: IEEE Security & Privacy. 2018.

Primary Research Area

  • Algorithmic Foundations and Cryptography

CISPA Affiliation

  • No

Legacy Posted Date

2018-09-25

Journal

IEEE Security & Privacy

Open Access Type

  • Unknown

Sub Type

  • Article

BibTeX

@article{cispa_all_2656, title = "When the Crypto in Cryptocurrencies Breaks: Bitcoin Security under Broken Primitives", author = "Giechaskiel, Ilias and Cremers, Cas and Rasmussen, Kasper B.", journal="{IEEE Security & Privacy}", year="2018", }

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