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Secure multiparty computations on Bitcoin

Published: 23 March 2016 Publication History

Abstract

Is it possible to design an online protocol for playing a lottery, in a completely decentralized way, that is, without relying on a trusted third party? Or can one construct a fully decentralized protocol for selling secret information, so that neither the seller nor the buyer can cheat in it? Until recently, it seemed that every online protocol that has financial consequences for the participants needs to rely on some sort of a trusted server that ensures that the money is transferred between them. In this work, we propose to use Bitcoin (a digital currency, introduced in 2008) to design such fully decentralized protocols that are secure even if no trusted third party is available. As an instantiation of this idea, we construct protocols for secure multiparty lotteries using the Bitcoin currency, without relying on a trusted authority. Our protocols guarantee fairness for the honest parties no matter how the loser behaves. For example, if one party interrupts the protocol, then her money is transferred to the honest participants. Our protocols are practical (to demonstrate it, we performed their transactions in the actual Bitcoin system) and in principle could be used in real life as a replacement for the online gambling sites.

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cover image Communications of the ACM
Communications of the ACM  Volume 59, Issue 4
April 2016
87 pages
ISSN:0001-0782
EISSN:1557-7317
DOI:10.1145/2907055
  • Editor:
  • Moshe Y. Vardi
Issue’s Table of Contents
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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Publication History

Published: 23 March 2016
Published in CACM Volume 59, Issue 4

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