CENSor: Detecting Illicit Bitcoin Operation via GCN-Based Hyperedge Classification

Cryptocurrencies have increasingly been used as a medium for illicit financial activities by criminals. Annually, billions of dollars’ worth of Bitcoin penetrate cryptocurrency exchanges. Despite the critical need for advanced Bitcoin financial forensics to investigate these criminal acti...

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Main Authors: Suyeol Lee, Jaehan Kim, Minjae Seo, Seung Ho Na, Seungwon Shin, Jinwoo Kim
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IEEE 2024-01-01
Series:IEEE Access
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10689425/
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author Suyeol Lee
Jaehan Kim
Minjae Seo
Seung Ho Na
Seungwon Shin
Jinwoo Kim
author_facet Suyeol Lee
Jaehan Kim
Minjae Seo
Seung Ho Na
Seungwon Shin
Jinwoo Kim
author_sort Suyeol Lee
collection DOAJ
description Cryptocurrencies have increasingly been used as a medium for illicit financial activities by criminals. Annually, billions of dollars’ worth of Bitcoin penetrate cryptocurrency exchanges. Despite the critical need for advanced Bitcoin financial forensics to investigate these criminal activities, no novel methods have been developed to detect illicit Bitcoin operations. Existing approaches to identifying illegal Bitcoin activity are limited due to their inadequate consideration of graph data. To address these limitations, we present a novel approach, Hyperedge Classification, to detect illegal transactions with greater precision. This approach introduces a novel cluster-based Hyperedge-Node Switching technique, which enables effective hyperedge classification and visualization of hyperedge relationships. Additionally, we propose a framework named CENSor (Cluster-based Edge Node Switching Detector), which offers more powerful and robust detection capabilities compared to traditional techniques for both illegal entity detection and illegal transaction detection. Our cluster-based Hyperedge-Node Switching technique demonstrates its effectiveness with an F1-score of 0.867, outperforming comparative baselines. Moreover, CENSor visualizes the Bitcoin cluster graph and the Hyperedge-Node switched graph, highlighting the importance of utilizing appropriate graph information in Bitcoin analysis. Finally, we demonstrate that CENSor is resilient to an adversarial attack aimed at evading detection.
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institution OA Journals
issn 2169-3536
language English
publishDate 2024-01-01
publisher IEEE
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spelling doaj-art-868fe2095db74e329eaf29eb84793e412025-08-20T02:09:47ZengIEEEIEEE Access2169-35362024-01-011215233015234610.1109/ACCESS.2024.346665010689425CENSor: Detecting Illicit Bitcoin Operation via GCN-Based Hyperedge ClassificationSuyeol Lee0https://orcid.org/0009-0004-8617-768XJaehan Kim1https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8048-097XMinjae Seo2https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9240-5213Seung Ho Na3https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0908-1233Seungwon Shin4https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1077-5606Jinwoo Kim5https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1303-8668FuriosaAI, Seoul, South KoreaSchool of Electrical Engineering, KAIST, Daejeon, South KoreaETRI, Daejeon, South KoreaSchool of Electrical Engineering, KAIST, Daejeon, South KoreaSchool of Electrical Engineering, KAIST, Daejeon, South KoreaSchool of Software, Kwangwoon University, Seoul, South KoreaCryptocurrencies have increasingly been used as a medium for illicit financial activities by criminals. Annually, billions of dollars’ worth of Bitcoin penetrate cryptocurrency exchanges. Despite the critical need for advanced Bitcoin financial forensics to investigate these criminal activities, no novel methods have been developed to detect illicit Bitcoin operations. Existing approaches to identifying illegal Bitcoin activity are limited due to their inadequate consideration of graph data. To address these limitations, we present a novel approach, Hyperedge Classification, to detect illegal transactions with greater precision. This approach introduces a novel cluster-based Hyperedge-Node Switching technique, which enables effective hyperedge classification and visualization of hyperedge relationships. Additionally, we propose a framework named CENSor (Cluster-based Edge Node Switching Detector), which offers more powerful and robust detection capabilities compared to traditional techniques for both illegal entity detection and illegal transaction detection. Our cluster-based Hyperedge-Node Switching technique demonstrates its effectiveness with an F1-score of 0.867, outperforming comparative baselines. Moreover, CENSor visualizes the Bitcoin cluster graph and the Hyperedge-Node switched graph, highlighting the importance of utilizing appropriate graph information in Bitcoin analysis. Finally, we demonstrate that CENSor is resilient to an adversarial attack aimed at evading detection.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10689425/Cryptocurrencyillicit entity detectionhypergraphgraph neural network
spellingShingle Suyeol Lee
Jaehan Kim
Minjae Seo
Seung Ho Na
Seungwon Shin
Jinwoo Kim
CENSor: Detecting Illicit Bitcoin Operation via GCN-Based Hyperedge Classification
IEEE Access
Cryptocurrency
illicit entity detection
hypergraph
graph neural network
title CENSor: Detecting Illicit Bitcoin Operation via GCN-Based Hyperedge Classification
title_full CENSor: Detecting Illicit Bitcoin Operation via GCN-Based Hyperedge Classification
title_fullStr CENSor: Detecting Illicit Bitcoin Operation via GCN-Based Hyperedge Classification
title_full_unstemmed CENSor: Detecting Illicit Bitcoin Operation via GCN-Based Hyperedge Classification
title_short CENSor: Detecting Illicit Bitcoin Operation via GCN-Based Hyperedge Classification
title_sort censor detecting illicit bitcoin operation via gcn based hyperedge classification
topic Cryptocurrency
illicit entity detection
hypergraph
graph neural network
url https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10689425/
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AT jaehankim censordetectingillicitbitcoinoperationviagcnbasedhyperedgeclassification
AT minjaeseo censordetectingillicitbitcoinoperationviagcnbasedhyperedgeclassification
AT seunghona censordetectingillicitbitcoinoperationviagcnbasedhyperedgeclassification
AT seungwonshin censordetectingillicitbitcoinoperationviagcnbasedhyperedgeclassification
AT jinwookim censordetectingillicitbitcoinoperationviagcnbasedhyperedgeclassification