Authors
Steven Goldfeder, Joseph Bonneau, Rosario Gennaro, Arvind Narayanan
Publication date
2017
Conference
Financial Cryptography and Data Security: 21st International Conference, FC 2017, Sliema, Malta, April 3-7, 2017, Revised Selected Papers 21
Pages
321-339
Publisher
Springer International Publishing
Description
We consider the problem of buying physical goods with cryptocurrencies. There is an inherent circular dependency: should be the buyer trust the seller and pay before receiving the goods or should the seller trust the buyer and ship the goods before receiving payment? This dilemma is addressed in practice using a third party escrow service. However, we show that naive escrow protocols introduce both privacy and security issues. We formalize the escrow problem and present a suite of schemes with improved security and privacy properties. Our schemes are compatible with Bitcoin and similar blockchain-based cryptocurrencies.
Total citations
20172018201920202021202220232024381220181494
Scholar articles
S Goldfeder, J Bonneau, R Gennaro, A Narayanan - Financial Cryptography and Data Security: 21st …, 2017