Zerocoin: Anonymous Distributed E-Cash from Bitcoin

Bitcoin is the first e-cash system to see widespread adoption. While Bitcoin offers the potential for new types of financial interaction, it has significant limitations regarding privacy. Specifically, because the Bitcoin transaction log is completely public, users' privacy is protected only th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	2013 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy pp. 397 - 411
Main Authors:	Miers, I., Garman, C., Green, M., Rubin, A. D.
Format:	Conference Proceeding
Language:	English
Published:	IEEE 01-05-2013
Subjects:	Concrete Cryptography Online banking Peer-to-peer computing Privacy Protocols
Online Access:	Get full text
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Summary:	Bitcoin is the first e-cash system to see widespread adoption. While Bitcoin offers the potential for new types of financial interaction, it has significant limitations regarding privacy. Specifically, because the Bitcoin transaction log is completely public, users' privacy is protected only through the use of pseudonyms. In this paper we propose Zerocoin, a cryptographic extension to Bitcoin that augments the protocol to allow for fully anonymous currency transactions. Our system uses standard cryptographic assumptions and does not introduce new trusted parties or otherwise change the security model of Bitcoin. We detail Zerocoin's cryptographic construction, its integration into Bitcoin, and examine its performance both in terms of computation and impact on the Bitcoin protocol.
ISBN:	9781467361668 1467361666
ISSN:	1081-6011 2375-1207
DOI:	10.1109/SP.2013.34