IACR News item: 08 September 2023
Nirvan Tyagi, Arasu Arun, Cody Freitag, Riad Wahby, Joseph Bonneau, David Mazières
ePrint Report
We introduce the first practical protocols for fully decentralized
sealed-bid auctions using timed commitments. Timed commitments
ensure that the auction is finalized fairly even if all participants drop
out after posting bids or if $n-1$ bidders collude to try to learn the
$n^{th}$ bidder’s bid value. Our protocols rely on a novel non-malleable
timed commitment scheme which efficiently supports range proofs
to establish that bidders have sufficient funds to cover a hidden
bid value. This allows us to penalize users who abandon bids for
exactly the bid value, while supporting simultaneous bidding in
multiple auctions with a shared collateral pool. Our protocols are
concretely efficient and we have implemented them in an Ethereum-
compatible smart contract which automatically enforces payment
and delivery of an auctioned digital asset.
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