Anonymous Auction Protocol Based on Time-Released Encryption atop Consortium Blockchain
This addresses privacy issues in blockchain-based auctions for users in financial applications, though it appears incremental as it builds on existing consortium blockchain and encryption methods.
The paper tackles the challenge of deploying financial applications on Ethereum by proposing an anonymous sealed-bid auction protocol using time-released encryption on a consortium blockchain, achieving anonymity and applicability as demonstrated in their analysis.
The Ethereum blockchain as a decentralized platform is so successful that many applications deployed on it. However, for the inherent transparency properties and the lack of privacy, deploying a financial application on top of it is always a challenge. In this paper, we tackle this challenge and propose an anonymous sealed-bid auction protocol based on time-released encryption atop Consortium Blockchain. We adopt a strict digital certificate-based identity mechanism of the consortium blockchain to permit legitimate participants, and utilize the blind signature based on elliptic curve technology to allowing anonymous participation. Moreover, a timed release public key encryption algorithm is adopted to encrypt bids and prevent auctioneer from colluding with bidders. This is completely different from the method (zero-knowledge proof) used in other papers to prevent collusion between auctioneer and bidder. We provide a specific analysis of our protocol, which shows that our protocol meets anonymity and applicability.