Blockchain Transaction Privacy via Homomorphic Encryption and Sum Proofs
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing blockchain transaction frameworks lack privacy protection for transaction information, exposing sensitive details such as sender, receiver, and transaction amounts, making them vulnerable to unauthorized use and malicious activities.
Innovation Solution
Implementing a method that encrypts transaction amounts using homomorphic encryption schemes like Pedersen Commitment, generating sum proofs to verify transaction balance, and obtaining range proofs and signatures to ensure accounts have sufficient assets, all transmitted to nodes on a blockchain network for verification, thereby concealing sender and receiver identities and ensuring transaction privacy.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If transaction information is made public for verification, then transaction transparency and network security are improved, but user privacy and sensitive information protection deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments transaction information into two parts: public verification data (encrypted transaction amounts and sum proofs) and private sensitive data (sender/receiver identities). This segmentation allows the public to verify transaction validity without exposing user privacy, resolving the contradiction between transparency and privacy protection.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces encryption algorithms as an intermediary mechanism. The encrypted transaction amounts and sum proofs act as mediators that enable public verification while concealing sensitive information. The encryption layer serves as a buffer between the need for transparency and the need for privacy protection.
2Loss of information
If encryption is applied to transaction amounts, then privacy protection is improved, but transaction verification complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by pre-computing sum proofs and range proofs before transactions are submitted to the blockchain. These proofs are generated in advance using the encryption scheme, so that verification nodes can directly verify them without performing complex decryption or computation, thus reducing verification complexity while maintaining privacy.
3Loss of information
If homomorphic encryption is used to conceal transaction details, then privacy protection is improved, but computational requirements and processing time increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by pre-computing sum proofs and range proofs before transactions are submitted to the blockchain. These proofs are generated in advance using the encryption scheme, so that verification nodes can directly verify them without performing complex decryption or computation, thus reducing verification complexity while maintaining privacy.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses Pedersen commitments which allow creating cryptographic copies of transaction amounts that can be manipulated and verified without revealing the original values. The sum proof is essentially a cryptographic copy that proves the validity of encrypted amounts without exposing them, enabling efficient verification while maintaining privacy.
Data Source
AI summary
A computer-implemented information protection method comprises: obtaining a plurality of encrypted transaction amounts associated with transactions among a plurality of accounts, wherein each of the encrypted transaction amounts is associated with one of the accounts that sends or receives one of the transaction amounts, and the encryption of each of the transaction amounts at least conceals whether the one account sends or receives the one of the transaction amounts; generating a sum proof based on the obtained encrypted transaction amounts, the sum proof at least indicating that the transaction amounts are balanced; and transmitting the encrypted transaction amounts and the sum proof to one or more nodes on a blockchain network for the nodes to verify the transactions.