Title: BiSign: pairing-based anonymity in bitcoin cryptocurrency

Authors: Albert Kofi Kwansah Ansah; Daniel Adu-Gyamfi; Stephen Anokye

Addresses: School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, No. 2006, Xiyuan, Chengdu, 611731, China; Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Mines and Technology, TK 237, Tarkwa, Ghana ' School of Information and Software Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, No. 4, Xiyuan, Chengdu, 610054, China; Department of Computer Science and Informatics, University of Energy and Natural Resources, Sunyani, Ghana ' School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, No. 2006, Xiyuan, Chengdu, 611731, China; Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Mines and Technology, TK 237, Tarkwa, Ghana

Abstract: Bitcoin as cryptocurrency cyber application records transactions on a Blockchain network but its anonymity is not fully explored. Users information and identity leakage vulnerabilities possibly exist due to Bitcoins public address system. This attracts privacy issues. Practical and compatible anonymity requirements for users are still not satisfactory despite several attempts provided in existing techniques. In this paper, we propose a privacypreservation scheme that ensures users carry out anonymous bitcoin transactions based on bilinear pairing, elliptic curve cryptography, and other cryptographic primitives. We theoretically analysed and evaluate our scheme which is proven secure to implement for preserving users privacy in bitcoin transactions. Simulation performed proved the correctness of our scheme and show average performance time of 6 μs and 11 μs respectively for 80-bits and 128-bits with PBC Type A pairing. Effectively, the analysis and evaluation suggest the proposed scheme as secure and robust to implement for preserving users privacy in bitcoin transactions.

Keywords: bitcoin; blockchain; anonymity; cryptocurrency; bilinear pairing; user privacy.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIPSI.2019.106598

International Journal of Information Privacy, Security and Integrity, 2019 Vol.4 No.2, pp.115 - 133

Received: 26 Apr 2019
Accepted: 31 Oct 2019
Published online: 15 Apr 2020 *

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