Paper 2025/088

ICT: Insured Cryptocurrency Transactions

Aydin Abadi, Newcastle University
Amirreza Sarencheh, The University of Edinburgh
Henry Skeoch, University College London
Thomas Zacharias, University of Glasgow
Abstract

Cryptocurrencies have emerged as a critical medium for digital financial transactions, driving widespread adoption while simultaneously exposing users to escalating fraud risks. The irreversible nature of cryptocurrency transactions, combined with the absence of consumer protection mechanisms, leaves users vulnerable to substantial financial losses and emotional distress. To address these vulnerabilities, we introduce Insured Cryptocurrency Transactions (ICT), a novel decentralized insurance framework designed to ensure financial recovery for honest users affected by fraudulent cryptocurrency transactions. We rigorously formalize the ICT framework, establishing strong security guarantees to protect against malicious adversaries. Furthermore, we present Insured Cryptocurrency Exchange (ICE), a concrete instantiation of ICT tailored for centralized cryptocurrency exchanges. ICE relies primarily on a standard smart contract and provides a robust mechanism to compensate users in cases of security breaches, insolvency, or fraudulent activities affecting the exchange. We have implemented ICE’s smart contract and evaluated its on-chain costs. The evaluation results demonstrate ICE’s low operational overhead. To our knowledge, ICT and ICE represent the first formal approaches to decentralized insurance frameworks in the cryptocurrency domain.

Metadata
Available format(s)
PDF
Category
Cryptographic protocols
Publication info
Preprint.
Keywords
CryptocurrencFinancial FraudSmart ContractsDecentralized FinanceDecentralized Insurance
Contact author(s)
aydin abadi @ ncl ac uk
amirreza sarencheh @ ed ac uk
henry skeoch 19 @ alumni ucl ac uk
thomas zacharias @ glasgow ac uk
History
2025-01-22: approved
2025-01-20: received
See all versions
Short URL
https://ia.cr/2025/088
License
Creative Commons Attribution
CC BY

BibTeX

@misc{cryptoeprint:2025/088,
      author = {Aydin Abadi and Amirreza Sarencheh and Henry Skeoch and Thomas Zacharias},
      title = {{ICT}: Insured Cryptocurrency Transactions},
      howpublished = {Cryptology {ePrint} Archive, Paper 2025/088},
      year = {2025},
      url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2025/088}
}
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