Author: alicexbt 2022-10-12 08:54:42
Published on: 2022-10-12T08:54:42+00:00
The author of this email has conducted research on nLocktime and nVersion used by open source Bitcoin wallets. They have written a blog post in collaboration with 'nothingmuch' for the privacy-focused blog 'consent'. The author notes that most wallets use nVersion 2 and that nLocktime for Bitcoin Core, Knots, Electrum, Sparrow, and Specter is nearest block height. However, nLocktime for Bitcoin Core/Knots is zero by default if the transaction is created manually using RPC commands like createpsbt or createrawtransaction. The blog post highlights the importance of wallet fingerprinting with nLocktime and nVersion. By examining the nVersion and nLocktime of a transaction, it becomes simpler to identify the wallet used for the transaction. For instance, if Alice is spying on Bob and Carol and suspects one of them is participating in an activity based on a transaction, she can examine the nVersion and nLocktime of the wallet used for the transaction to identify Bob.To fix this issue, the author suggests that more wallets should have the same nVersion and nLocktime. This would make it difficult to identify the wallets used for a transaction. However, the version needs to be 2 as most of the wallets use it and it is used for transactions that follow new consensus rules.The email includes links to relevant tools and resources, including a tool built by Andrew Chow to check if a transaction was created using Bitcoin Core or Electrum, and a blog post by '0xb10c' about wallet fingerprinting with fee rate. The author acknowledges the contributions of achow101, 0xb10c, and nothingmuch- RedGrittyBrick. The email was sent using Proton Mail secure email.
Updated on: 2023-05-22T21:44:43.370016+00:00