How to get multiple addresses belonging to the same person

PrimeNumber7

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Quote from: Welsh on January 01, 2021, 06:14:49 PM

These only provide a "likeliness" rather than concretely proving that the addresses are connected. Its very much guesswork, and the addresses should probably be monitored to see if send from the same output several times, to increase the likelihood that the addresses are connected. So, although its a good system, and usually is indicative that the addresses are related, it doesn't exactly mean the addresses are connected without a shadow of doubt.

It is really not possible to prove beyond any doubt that two addresses are connected to the same person. There is always the possibility that the person would claim something along the lines of that they sometimes sign transactions with another party for whatever reason.

I think the OP is probably trying to create a tool similar to walletexplorer.com (there are several that sell their services). Anyone developing this kind of tool will need to strike a balance between what level of certainty they want to have and the number of false negatives (saying that two addresses are not connected to the same person when they are) they are comfortable with.

TryNinja

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Quote from: Welsh on January 01, 2021, 06:14:49 PM

https://www.walletexplorer.com/

Just enter any address there and it will show all related addresses

A better and more visual website I found out last month is Blockpath.com (their "Graph" tab, to be exact). You can see a graph connecting your address with others based on their transactions, so you end up with something that looks like this:

And you can even color the dots based on their balance, moved value and time of the transaction. It's a great tool to see the connections between hops from one address to the other (also shows why mixers are important).

Welsh

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Quote from: bitmover on December 26, 2020, 11:59:41 AM

Rhere are a few tools that can do that. They just group addresses that spent bitcoin in the same transaction
For example
https://www.walletexplorer.com/

Just enter any address there and it will show all related addresses

These only provide a "likeliness" rather than concretely proving that the addresses are connected. Its very much guesswork, and the addresses should probably be monitored to see if send from the same output several times, to increase the likelihood that the addresses are connected. So, although its a good system, and usually is indicative that the addresses are related, it doesn't exactly mean the addresses are connected without a shadow of doubt.

bitmover

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Quote from: linuxqq on December 24, 2020, 03:36:31 AM

Regarding the seed wallet, I would like to know how to obtain these addresses are related and belong to one person? I have seen many blockchain browsers automatically recognize that the wallet address belongs to the same person. How is this done?

Rhere are a few tools that can do that. They just group addresses that spent bitcoin in the same transaction
For example
https://www.walletexplorer.com/

Just enter any address there and it will show all related addresses

PrimeNumber7

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Quote from: linuxqq on December 24, 2020, 03:36:31 AM

I have seen many blockchain browsers automatically recognize that the wallet address belongs to the same person. How is this done?

They make assumptions, and disprove null-hypothesis for certain sets of addresses. They may run their analysis multiple times before coming to a final conclusion.

These 'blockchain browsers' will not always be accurate.

vjudeu

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For example, if you use two input in a tx from two different addresses, it's certain that both address belong to same wallet.

Not really. For example, we have two parties that want to put their coins in the Lightning Network channel. They can generate some multisig address and put their coins in two separate transactions, but they don't have to do it this way. They can do it in a single transaction, then we will have at least two inputs (assuming every party puts some coins on its side of the channel) and at least one output (assuming that all coins are moved to the channel), but there still can be more outputs, for example they can use three outputs if both parties have one change output.

khaled0111

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Quote from: RapTarX on December 24, 2020, 01:43:21 PM

For example, if you use two input in a tx from two different addresses, it's certain that both address belong to same wallet. But one can easily pass this since there is coin control option on client.

Although walletexplorer and some blockchain analysts use this to link addresses and assume all co-spent addresses belong to the same wallet, this is not always true. CoinJoin transactions are probably the best counter-example.

Quote from: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Common-input-ownership_heuristic

The assumption is first mentioned in the original bitcoin whitepaper which says that the heuristic is always true. This is one of the few errors in the paper. It is possible for multiple entities to cooperate to create and sign a single transaction which spends inputs owned by multiple people. This is known as CoinJoin and one of its main purposes is to break this heuristic.

RapTarX

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Quote from: The Cryptovator on December 24, 2020, 01:09:31 PM

But what if two people use the same wallet and import private keys to broadcast a transaction?

That doesn't make the situation two wallet; it's still one wallet which includes more addresses. It's not possible to have a single tx broadcasted from two wallets.
Regarding the question- walletexplorer tries to get the connection between different addresses into single txs and tag them as addresses from same wallet. For example, if you use two input in a tx from two different addresses, it's certain that both address belong to same wallet. But one can easily pass this since there is coin control option on client.

The Cryptovator

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There are no tools that you can get exact data about if all the addresses belong to the same person. Even Walletexplorer can't give you exact data. I have a few addresses on the Electrum, but Walletexplorer shows different wallet id for each BTC address. Usually when we see a transaction broadcast and output from multiple addresses then we assume the wallet owner is the same. But what if two people use the same wallet and import private keys to broadcast a transaction? They would be friends and relatives. So, there is no exact way to know if the address doesn't belong to the same person or the same seed.

But technically, if someone has the private keys then he is the owner of that address that belongs to that private key. So instead of using a person, we may use the owner. So when we will see multiple outputs on the same transaction id, we can all these transaction from the same owner. Who has broadcasted the transaction on the blockchain, he has access to all the outputs address's private keys.

hosseinimr93

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As stated by ranochigo, if two addresses are used as inputs of a same a transaction, there is a very high probability that they have a same owner.

You can use Walletexplorer to find addresses that have been co-spent with each other.
If addresses A and B are spent in same a transaction, walletexplorer put both of them in a same wallet. If any other address is co-spent with either address A or address B in future, it will go to a same wallet.
Just search a bitcoin address in walletexplorer. You will get all other addresses belonging to a same wallet (addresses that have been co-spent with each other).

NotATether

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The only way you know for sure if two addresses are from the same seed is if you have the seed itself so you can attempt to derive these two addresses using the extended private key. These are not public information that's why a block explorer can't give you this information.

ranochigo

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In most cases, the user spends the outputs from a few different addresses in the same transaction. This results in the blockexplorers having a fair degree of certainty that the addresses belongs to the same user. It's important to note that this isn't always the case as privacy implementations like CoinJoin will skew the results and people can always "trick" the blockexplorer using these heuristic as well, and it's thus a so-called spendlink.

For the above method, blockexplorers can only determine with a varying degree of certainty depending on how many times the addresses are reused or the outputs are spent in the same transaction.

The problem doesn't exist exclusively with seed wallets. Older Bitcoin Core implementation doesn't encourage address reuse as well and thus the outputs could be spread across different addresses.

linuxqq

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Regarding the seed wallet, I would like to know how to obtain these addresses are related and belong to one person? I have seen many blockchain browsers automatically recognize that the wallet address belongs to the same person. How is this done?

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