Signature schemes for privacy protection in blockchains

Abstract

A peer-to-peer electronic cash system introduced as bitcoin in 2008 focused on the need to newlineovercome the un-trusted third-party s involvement in online financial transactions apart newlinefrom many other aspects. Today, decentralized public ledger technology in a peer-to-peer newlinenetwork is becoming popular and is being called blockchain technology. Blockchains are newlinemajorly categorized as public blockchains, consortium blockchains and private blockchains. newlineBlockchain technology has received considerable attention recently with the continuous newlinedevelopment in financial and non-financial domains and its security features. This led newlineto a flurry of advancements in various applications using blockchains. Blockchain offers newlinevarious security features such as transparency, immutability, and traceability in business newlinetransactions . Its ability to work seamlessly across various fields is becoming very popular, newlineand one such field is e-auction. newlineAn e-auction is a method of selling products or services in which a vendor offers the newlineitems or services for sale, and potential buyers submit their bids. Each vendor expects to newlineobtain competitive rates from the buyers who want to purchase these items or services at newlinethe lowest possible cost. To achieve the participants privacy and fairness exchange, it is newlinenecessary to have a trustworthy third party to host the e-auction. However, trusted third newlineparty holds a lot of important information about the users. As a result, it constantly raises newlinethe possibility of threats ranging from single-point attacks to collusion attacks, and it is newlinealso challenging to identify a totally trusted organization that can take on such a function newlinein practice. newlineMany e-auction protocols have recently been implemented on top of blockchain to benefit newlinefrom the blockchain s decentralization, transparency, immutability, and verifiability features newlineand eliminate the protocol drawbacks caused by the centralized third party. Transactions newlineplay a vital role in any blockchain system. Transactions are first created by various newlineusers and are broadca