TRCT: A Traceable Anonymous Transaction Protocol for Blockchain

Anonymous cryptocurrencies are distributed applications based on blockchain technology that enhance the anonymity of user transactions. However, they also provide cover for many criminal activities. Existing traceable modifications of anonymous transaction protocols do not support public verification of the traceability of transactions, meaning dishonest users can still evade tracing by forging partial proofs. In this paper, we first propose EPoK, which is a partially extractable zero-knowledge proof scheme designed to address this issue. We provide the instantiation of EPoK, as well as its formal security proofs. Combined with EPoK and the classic anonymous transaction protocol RingCT, we propose a traceable anonymous transaction protocol TRCT for tracing participants’ addresses and transaction amounts in anonymous transactions. Compared to previous works, TRCT is the first to implement public verification of the transaction’s traceability while still maintaining anonymity. This ensures that users cannot forge relevant proofs to evade tracing. We present and prove the security properties of TRCT, and experimentally compare its efficiency with the original RingCT protocol. The result shows that the extra overhead generated by TRCT is small.