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Date: Fri, 26 Feb 2016 21:42:26 +0000
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From: Gregory Maxwell <greg@xiph.org>
To: Bitcoin Dev <bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org>
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Subject: [bitcoin-dev] The first successful Zero-Knowledge Contingent Payment
Precedence: list

I am happy to announce the first successful Zero-Knowledge Contingent
Payment (ZKCP) on the Bitcoin network.

ZKCP is a transaction protocol that allows a buyer to purchase
information from a seller using Bitcoin in a manner which is private,
scalable, secure, and which doesn=E2=80=99t require trusting anyone: the
expected information is transferred if and only if the payment is
made. The buyer and seller do not need to trust each other or depend
on arbitration by a third party.

Imagine a movie-style =E2=80=9Cbriefcase swap=E2=80=9D (one party with a br=
iefcase
full of cash, another containing secret documents), but without the
potential scenario of one of the cases being filled with shredded
newspaper and the resulting exciting chase scene.

An example application would be the owners of a particular make of
e-book reader cooperating to purchase the DRM master keys from a
failing manufacturer, so that they could load their own documents on
their readers after the vendor=E2=80=99s servers go offline. This type of s=
ale
is inherently irreversible, potentially crosses multiple
jurisdictions, and involves parties whose financial stability is
uncertain=E2=80=93meaning that both parties either take a great deal of ris=
k
or have to make difficult arrangement. Using a ZKCP avoids the
significant transactional costs involved in a sale which can otherwise
easily go wrong.

In today=E2=80=99s transaction I purchased a solution to a 16x16 Sudoku puz=
zle
for 0.10 BTC from Sean Bowe, a member of the Zcash team, as part of a
demonstration performed live at Financial Cryptography 2016 in
Barbados. I played my part in the transaction remotely from
California.

The transfer involved two transactions:

8e5df5f792ac4e98cca87f10aba7947337684a5a0a7333ab897fb9c9d616ba9e
200554139d1e3fe6e499f6ffb0b6e01e706eb8c897293a7f6a26d25e39623fae

Almost all of the engineering work behind this ZKCP implementation was
done by Sean Bowe, with support from Pieter Wuille, myself, and Madars
Virza.


Read more, including technical details at
https://bitcoincore.org/en/2016/02/26/zero-knowledge-contingent-payments-an=
nouncement/

[I hope to have a ZKCP sudoku buying faucet up shortly. :) ]