Tracking Counterfeit Cryptocurrency End-to-end

Bingyu Gao; Haoyu Wang; Pengcheng Xia; Siwei Wu; Yajin Zhou; Xiapu Luo; Gareth Tyson

doi:10.1145/3410220.3456282

Tracking Counterfeit Cryptocurrency End-to-end

Bingyu Gao, Haoyu Wang^*, Pengcheng Xia, Siwei Wu, Yajin Zhou, Xiapu Luo, Gareth Tyson

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Conference Proceeding/Report › Conference Paper published in a book › peer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

With the growth of the cryptocurrency ecosystem, there is expanding evidence that counterfeit cryptocurrency has also appeared. In this paper, we empirically explore the presence of counterfeit cryptocurrencies on Ethereum and measure their impact. By analyzing over 190K ERC-20 tokens (or cryptocurrencies) on Ethereum, we have identified 2,117 counterfeit tokens that target 94 of the 100 most popular cryptocurrencies. We perform an end-to-end characterization of the counterfeit token ecosystem, including their popularity, creators and holders, fraudulent behaviors and advertising channels. Through this, we have identified two types of scams related to counterfeit tokens and devised techniques to identify such scams. We observe that over 7,104 victims were deceived in these scams, and the overall financial loss sums to a minimum of $17 million (74,271.7 ETH). Our findings demonstrate the urgency to identify counterfeit cryptocurrencies and mitigate this threat.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	SIGMETRICS 2021 - Abstract Proceedings of the 2021 ACM SIGMETRICS / International Conference on Measurement and Modeling of Computer Systems
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery, Inc
Pages	33-34
Number of pages	2
ISBN (Electronic)	9781450380720
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/3410220.3456282
Publication status	Published - 31 May 2021
Externally published	Yes
Event	2021 ACM SIGMETRICS / International Conference on Measurement and Modeling of Computer Systems, SIGMETRICS 2021 - Virtual. Online, China Duration: 14 Jun 2021 → 18 Jun 2021

Publication series

Name	SIGMETRICS 2021 - Abstract Proceedings of the 2021 ACM SIGMETRICS / International Conference on Measurement and Modeling of Computer Systems

Conference

Conference	2021 ACM SIGMETRICS / International Conference on Measurement and Modeling of Computer Systems, SIGMETRICS 2021
Country/Territory	China
City	Virtual. Online
Period	14/06/21 → 18/06/21

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Owner/Author.

Keywords

blockchain
counterfeit cryptocurrency
ethereum
scam

Access to Document

10.1145/3410220.3456282

Cite this

Gao, B., Wang, H., Xia, P., Wu, S., Zhou, Y., Luo, X., & Tyson, G. (2021). Tracking Counterfeit Cryptocurrency End-to-end. In SIGMETRICS 2021 - Abstract Proceedings of the 2021 ACM SIGMETRICS / International Conference on Measurement and Modeling of Computer Systems (pp. 33-34). (SIGMETRICS 2021 - Abstract Proceedings of the 2021 ACM SIGMETRICS / International Conference on Measurement and Modeling of Computer Systems). Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. https://doi.org/10.1145/3410220.3456282

Gao, Bingyu ; Wang, Haoyu ; Xia, Pengcheng et al. / Tracking Counterfeit Cryptocurrency End-to-end. SIGMETRICS 2021 - Abstract Proceedings of the 2021 ACM SIGMETRICS / International Conference on Measurement and Modeling of Computer Systems. Association for Computing Machinery, Inc, 2021. pp. 33-34 (SIGMETRICS 2021 - Abstract Proceedings of the 2021 ACM SIGMETRICS / International Conference on Measurement and Modeling of Computer Systems).

@inproceedings{ece45cc3f69847e6ba1655397fb626fd,

title = "Tracking Counterfeit Cryptocurrency End-to-end",

abstract = "With the growth of the cryptocurrency ecosystem, there is expanding evidence that counterfeit cryptocurrency has also appeared. In this paper, we empirically explore the presence of counterfeit cryptocurrencies on Ethereum and measure their impact. By analyzing over 190K ERC-20 tokens (or cryptocurrencies) on Ethereum, we have identified 2,117 counterfeit tokens that target 94 of the 100 most popular cryptocurrencies. We perform an end-to-end characterization of the counterfeit token ecosystem, including their popularity, creators and holders, fraudulent behaviors and advertising channels. Through this, we have identified two types of scams related to counterfeit tokens and devised techniques to identify such scams. We observe that over 7,104 victims were deceived in these scams, and the overall financial loss sums to a minimum of \$17 million (74,271.7 ETH). Our findings demonstrate the urgency to identify counterfeit cryptocurrencies and mitigate this threat.",

keywords = "blockchain, counterfeit cryptocurrency, ethereum, scam",

author = "Bingyu Gao and Haoyu Wang and Pengcheng Xia and Siwei Wu and Yajin Zhou and Xiapu Luo and Gareth Tyson",

note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2021 Owner/Author.; 2021 ACM SIGMETRICS / International Conference on Measurement and Modeling of Computer Systems, SIGMETRICS 2021 ; Conference date: 14-06-2021 Through 18-06-2021",

year = "2021",

month = may,

day = "31",

doi = "10.1145/3410220.3456282",

language = "English",

series = "SIGMETRICS 2021 - Abstract Proceedings of the 2021 ACM SIGMETRICS / International Conference on Measurement and Modeling of Computer Systems",

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Gao, B, Wang, H, Xia, P, Wu, S, Zhou, Y, Luo, X & Tyson, G 2021, Tracking Counterfeit Cryptocurrency End-to-end. in SIGMETRICS 2021 - Abstract Proceedings of the 2021 ACM SIGMETRICS / International Conference on Measurement and Modeling of Computer Systems. SIGMETRICS 2021 - Abstract Proceedings of the 2021 ACM SIGMETRICS / International Conference on Measurement and Modeling of Computer Systems, Association for Computing Machinery, Inc, pp. 33-34, 2021 ACM SIGMETRICS / International Conference on Measurement and Modeling of Computer Systems, SIGMETRICS 2021, Virtual. Online, China, 14/06/21. https://doi.org/10.1145/3410220.3456282

Tracking Counterfeit Cryptocurrency End-to-end. / Gao, Bingyu; Wang, Haoyu; Xia, Pengcheng et al.
SIGMETRICS 2021 - Abstract Proceedings of the 2021 ACM SIGMETRICS / International Conference on Measurement and Modeling of Computer Systems. Association for Computing Machinery, Inc, 2021. p. 33-34 (SIGMETRICS 2021 - Abstract Proceedings of the 2021 ACM SIGMETRICS / International Conference on Measurement and Modeling of Computer Systems).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Conference Proceeding/Report › Conference Paper published in a book › peer-review

TY - GEN

T1 - Tracking Counterfeit Cryptocurrency End-to-end

AU - Gao, Bingyu

AU - Wang, Haoyu

AU - Xia, Pengcheng

AU - Wu, Siwei

AU - Zhou, Yajin

AU - Luo, Xiapu

AU - Tyson, Gareth

PY - 2021/5/31

Y1 - 2021/5/31

N2 - With the growth of the cryptocurrency ecosystem, there is expanding evidence that counterfeit cryptocurrency has also appeared. In this paper, we empirically explore the presence of counterfeit cryptocurrencies on Ethereum and measure their impact. By analyzing over 190K ERC-20 tokens (or cryptocurrencies) on Ethereum, we have identified 2,117 counterfeit tokens that target 94 of the 100 most popular cryptocurrencies. We perform an end-to-end characterization of the counterfeit token ecosystem, including their popularity, creators and holders, fraudulent behaviors and advertising channels. Through this, we have identified two types of scams related to counterfeit tokens and devised techniques to identify such scams. We observe that over 7,104 victims were deceived in these scams, and the overall financial loss sums to a minimum of $17 million (74,271.7 ETH). Our findings demonstrate the urgency to identify counterfeit cryptocurrencies and mitigate this threat.

AB - With the growth of the cryptocurrency ecosystem, there is expanding evidence that counterfeit cryptocurrency has also appeared. In this paper, we empirically explore the presence of counterfeit cryptocurrencies on Ethereum and measure their impact. By analyzing over 190K ERC-20 tokens (or cryptocurrencies) on Ethereum, we have identified 2,117 counterfeit tokens that target 94 of the 100 most popular cryptocurrencies. We perform an end-to-end characterization of the counterfeit token ecosystem, including their popularity, creators and holders, fraudulent behaviors and advertising channels. Through this, we have identified two types of scams related to counterfeit tokens and devised techniques to identify such scams. We observe that over 7,104 victims were deceived in these scams, and the overall financial loss sums to a minimum of $17 million (74,271.7 ETH). Our findings demonstrate the urgency to identify counterfeit cryptocurrencies and mitigate this threat.

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KW - ethereum

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BT - SIGMETRICS 2021 - Abstract Proceedings of the 2021 ACM SIGMETRICS / International Conference on Measurement and Modeling of Computer Systems

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Y2 - 14 June 2021 through 18 June 2021

ER -

Gao B, Wang H, Xia P, Wu S, Zhou Y, Luo X et al. Tracking Counterfeit Cryptocurrency End-to-end. In SIGMETRICS 2021 - Abstract Proceedings of the 2021 ACM SIGMETRICS / International Conference on Measurement and Modeling of Computer Systems. Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. 2021. p. 33-34. (SIGMETRICS 2021 - Abstract Proceedings of the 2021 ACM SIGMETRICS / International Conference on Measurement and Modeling of Computer Systems). doi: 10.1145/3410220.3456282

Tracking Counterfeit Cryptocurrency End-to-end

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Keywords

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