Paper 2026/2687
Penalty Deposits For Discrete Logarithms
Abstract
We propose a technique that allows a trusted party in some protocol to attach deposits to their own secrets, without impacting security, and convincing other parties using zero-knowledge proofs. The rationale is that, should this party compromise the protocol by blundering or revealing its secrets, they lose the attached deposit to attackers. As a result, stakeholders gain confidence on how this trusted party operates, and breaches become public as soon as deposits are claimed. We formalize this technique and related security notions, provide two practical constructions in generic discrete logarithm groups, and analyze its application to ECDLP-based protocols.
Metadata
- Available format(s)
-
PDF
- Publication info
- Preprint.
- Keywords
- ECDLPzero-knowledge proofpenalty
- Contact author(s)
- francisco @ vialprado com
- History
- 2026-11-04: approved
- 2026-10-29: received
- See all versions
- Short URL
- https://ia.cr/2026/2687
- License
-
CC BY
BibTeX
@misc{cryptoeprint:2026/2687,
author = {Francisco Vial-Prado and Louis Goubin},
title = {Penalty Deposits For Discrete Logarithms},
howpublished = {Cryptology {ePrint} Archive, Paper 2026/2687},
year = {2026},
url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2026/2687}
}
