Skip to main content

A Fast and Scalable Payment Network with Bitcoin Duplex Micropayment Channels

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Book cover Stabilization, Safety, and Security of Distributed Systems (SSS 2015)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 9212))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

Bitcoin does not scale, because its synchronization mechanism, the blockchain, limits the maximum rate of transactions the network can process. However, using off-blockchain transactions it is possible to create long-lived channels over which an arbitrary number of transfers can be processed locally between two users, without any burden to the Bitcoin network. These channels may form a network of payment service providers (PSPs). Payments can be routed between any two users in real time, without any confirmation delay. In this work we present a protocol for duplex micropayment channels, which guarantees end-to-end security and allow instant transfers, laying the foundation of the PSP network.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 44.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 59.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Andrychowicz, M., Dziembowski, S., Malinowski, D., Mazurek, Ł.: How to deal with malleability of bitcoin transactions. arXiv preprint arXiv:1312.3230 (2013)

  2. Back, A., Corallo, M., Dashjr, L., Friedenbach, M., Maxwell, G., Miller, A., Poelstra, A., Timón, J., Wuille, P.: Enabling blockchain innovations with pegged sidechains (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Bamert, T., Decker, C., Elsen, L., Welten, S., Wattenhofer, R.: Have a snack, pay with bitcoin. In: IEEE International Conference on Peer-to-Peer Computing (P2P), Trento, Italy (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Barber, S., Boyen, X., Shi, E., Uzun, E.: Bitter to better — how to make bitcoin a better currency. In: Keromytis, A.D. (ed.) FC 2012. LNCS, vol. 7397, pp. 399–414. Springer, Heidelberg (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Decker, C., Seidel, J., Wattenhofer, R.: Bitcoin meets strong consistency. arXiv preprint arXiv:1412.7935 (2014)

  6. Decker, C., Wattenhofer, R.: Information propagation in the bitcoin network. In: IEEE International Conference on Peer-to-Peer Computing (P2P), Trento, Italy, September 2013

    Google Scholar 

  7. Decker, C., Wattenhofer, R.: Bitcoin transaction malleability and MtGox. In: Kutyłowski, M., Vaidya, J. (eds.) ESORICS 2014, Part II. LNCS, vol. 8713, pp. 313–326. Springer, Heidelberg (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Eyal, I., Sirer, E.G.: Majority is not enough: Bitcoin mining is vulnerable. arXiv preprint arXiv:1311.0243 (2013)

  9. Hearn, M., Spilman, J.: Bitcoin contracts. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contracts (accessed: May 2015)

  10. Karame, G.O., Androulaki, E., Capkun, S.: Two bitcoins at the price of one? double-spending attacks on fast payments in bitcoin. In: Proc. of Conference on Computer and Communication Security (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Nakamoto, S.: Bitcoin: A peer-to-peer electronic cash system. https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf (accessed: March 26, 2014)

  12. Poon, J., Dryja, T.: The bitcoin lightning network

    Google Scholar 

  13. Rosenfeld, M.: Analysis of hashrate-based double spending. arXiv preprint arXiv:1402.2009 (2014)

  14. Sompolinsky, Y., Zohar, A.: Accelerating bitcoin’s transaction processing

    Google Scholar 

  15. Wuille, P.: BIP 0062: Dealing with Malleability (2014). https://github.com/bitcoin/bips (accessed: March 10th, 2014)

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Christian Decker .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

About this paper

Cite this paper

Decker, C., Wattenhofer, R. (2015). A Fast and Scalable Payment Network with Bitcoin Duplex Micropayment Channels. In: Pelc, A., Schwarzmann, A. (eds) Stabilization, Safety, and Security of Distributed Systems. SSS 2015. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9212. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21741-3_1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21741-3_1

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-21740-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-21741-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics