A Blockchain Privacy Protection Scheme Based on Ring Signature

A Blockchain Privacy Protection Scheme Based on Ring Signature ABSTRACT Blockchain is a point-to-point distributed ledger technology based on cryptographic algorithms. However, the open and transparent blockchain ledger supplemented by statistical methods such as sociological mining and data mining has caused users’ privacy to face major threats. Therefore, privacy protection has become a focus of current blockchain technology research. Ring signature technology is a commonly used encryption technology in the field of privacy protection. Therefore, this paper constructs a blockchain privacy protection scheme based on ring signature. This solution built a privacy data storage protocol based on the ring signature on the elliptic curve, and used the complete anonymity of the ring signature to ensure the security of data and user identity privacy in blockchain applications. The correctness and safety proof analysis of the proposed scheme were also carried out. INDEX TERMS Blockchain, privacy protection, ring signature, elliptic curve. I. INTRODUCTION The concept of blockchain first appeared in the Bitcoin white paper of Nakamoto [1] in 2009. It is a new technology system derived from the underlying technology of Bitcoin. In essence, the blockchain is a decentralized, tamper-resistant distributed database, and the bottom layer is a chain structure of data blocks arranged in chronological order. The security of each link of the system is guaranteed by technologies such as cryptography. Because the blockchain has the characteristics of decentralization, tamper resistance, anonymity, and public verifiability, it has become the core technology of digital cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. Through the use of P2P networks, data encryption, time stamping, distributed consensus, and incentive mechanisms, nodes in the system can complete point-to-point transactions. This solves the problems of high trust, low efficiency, and insecure data storage in the centralized system [2]. With the widespread circulation of bitcoin, the research and application of bitcoin’s core technology blockchain has shown explosive growth. The associate editor coordinating the review of this manuscript and approving it for publication was Wenbing Zhao . It is considered to be the fifth disruptive innovation in the computing paradigm after mainframes, personal computers, the Internet, and mobile social networks [3]. The high-quality technical characteristics of the blockchain make it widely used in fields other than digital cryptocurrencies. In the financial field, central banks of various countries attach great importance to blockchain technology, design their respective digital currencies through reference to research or direct applications, and use blockchain technology to improve the problems of long reconciliation and clearing time, low cross-border settlement efficiency, and high maintenance cost of central ledger data in traditional financial systems. In the field of the Internet of Things, the characteristics of point-to-point transactions and intelligent verification of blockchain technology are used to achieve different types of transactions between Internet of Things devices [4]. IBM has proposed to combine blockchain technology with IoT applications to form a ‘‘decentralized autonomous IoT.’’ In the field of intellectual property, researchers have used blockchain’s time stamping, anti-tampering and antiforgery features to achieve data storage, copyright protection, and work identification. In addition, supply chain, judicial,