An anonymous protocol with user identification and linking capabilities for user privacy in a permissioned blockchain

Abstract

A permissioned blockchain includes a user in the network after verifying the user’s identity, in contrast to Bitcoin, which is a public blockchain that allows network participation without third-party approval. The two types of permissioned blockchains are private blockchains, each consisting of one server and multiple users, and consortium blockchains, which consist of groups of private blockchains. However, a blockchain has privacy issues, such as user tracking and inference. Therefore, cryptography should be applied for user privacy in a blockchain. There is a lot of research on anonymous protocols for privacy in a blockchain. In this paper, we provide a scheme for user management, i.e., identification and authorization, in a permissioned blockchain. We also propose an anonymous protocol with user identification and transaction linking capabilities provided by the private server, strictly to solve privacy concerns.