TSS-ZKP: Enabling Blockchain Account Supervision Without Compromising User Identity

Cong Wang, Qiang Li, Guanquan Xu, Tiantian Zhang, Shouling Ji, Jian Weng, Pan Gao, Wei Wang

Abstract: Performing effective supervision in blockchain networks while preserving public anonymity has long been a challenging issue. Existing solutions often depend on third-party institutions or dual-chain architectures to monitor and recover user identities, but these approaches pose significant risks, such as identity disclosure and increased interchain communication costs. To address these concerns, this article proposes a novel supervised scheme based on threshold secret-sharing (TSS) and zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) on anonymous accounts on the blockchain called TSS-ZKP, while integrating regulatory authority (RA) and multiple traceability centers (TC). Compared to traditional single RA, TSS-ZKP decentralizes the RA and storage across multiple TCs, significantly reducing the risk of user identity leakage by a single RA. By TSS-ZKP, user identities are recovered through the collaborative generation of subsecrets by the RA and TCs, without storing actual identity information. By leveraging elliptic curves and using hash functions as secret labels, TSS-ZKP achieves lightweight operations, allowing TCs to efficiently locate subsecrets without extensive traversal. The comprehensive analysis of security and privacy demonstrated that TSS-ZKP effectively safeguards user privacy while enabling feasible supervision. In addition, comparison experimental results show that the time consumption of the TSS-ZKP is about 30% of that of the comparison scheme. Meanwhile, the simulation results highlight the practicality of the scheme, showing that TSS-ZKP significantly reduces the delays in the identity recovery process while maintaining high usability. In general, TSS-ZKP provides a safer and more feasible solution for enabling the supervision of blockchain accounts.

External IDs:dblp:journals/iotj/WangLXZJWGW25