[2016-09-15] Improving Bitcoin’s Privacy and Scalability with TumbleBit

"TumbleBit is implemented as a layer built on top of Bitcoin, and thus is fully compatible with today’s Bitcoin protocol. (This is analogous to how Tor is built as a layer on top of IP.) TumbleBit payments are sent via an intermediary called the Tumbler. In our paper, we describe how the core TumbleBit protocol can be run in in two modes. The first mode is a classic Bitcoin tumbler (also called a mixing service). In this post I will only address the second mode, where TumbleBit is used as an unlinkable payment hub.
A Bitcoin payment hub is a system that allows users to make off-blockchain transactions (via an intermediary, aka the payment hub) with the same level of security as on-blockchain transactions. Users join the payment hub by “opening a payment channel” that escrows bitcoins in an on-blockchain Bitcoin transaction. Next, users send payments to each other off-blockchain. These payments can be high volume and fast, because they are not subject to the time it takes to confirm transactions on Bitcoin’s blockchain. Finally, a user “closes its payment channel” via an on-blockchain transaction that reflects its new balance of bitcoins after all off-blockchain payments have been made.
In order to provide anonymity, TumbleBit requires all its users to open payment channels (in the “Escrow Phase”) and to close their payment channels (in the “Cash-Out Phase”)*. These two TumbleBit phases are relatively slow, because they require each user to post on-blockchain Bitcoin transaction that takes about 10 minutes to be confirmed. However, between these two phases in the “Payment Phase” where users send fast off-blockchain payments. TumbleBit payments can complete in seconds, thus scaling the velocity of Bitcoin payments. Perhaps more importantly, off-blockchain TumbleBit payments do not take up space on Bitcoin’s blockchain. This allows Bitcoin to process many off-blockchain transactions for only two on-blockchain transactions (i.e. the transactions which open and close the payment channel), scaling the maximum transaction volume which Bitcoin can handle.
Payment hubs have a long history in Bitcoin. TumbleBit’s main innovation is to provide unlinkability.
Unlinkability is defined as follows. Informally, unlinkability ensures that no one can tell which payer (Alice) paid which payee (Bob) during the payment phase of TumbleBit. More formally, the amount of bitcoin each user escrowed on the blockchain during the Escrow Phase is public. The amount of bitcoin cashed-out by each user during the “Cash-Out Phase” is also public. Let an interaction graph be any mapping of payments from the payers using TumbleBit (Alice1, …, AliceN) to payees using TumbleBit (Bob1, …, BobM). An interaction graph is compatible if it explains the transfer of funds from TumbleBit’s “Escrow Phase” to TumbleBit’s “Cash-Out Phase”. Unlinkability requires all compatible interaction graphs to be equally likely. TumbleBit payments are unlinkable because the TumbleBit protocol ensures that all compatible interaction graphs are equally likely. The anonymity provided by TumbleBit grows with the number of compatible interaction graphs.
To achieve unlinkability without compromising the security and safety of Bitcoin payments, TumbleBit must also ensure that the hub can’t steal bitcoins from the users or “print money” for itself. To do this, TumbleBit uses two interleaved protocols, the puzzle-promise-protocol and the RSA-puzzle-solver protocol. I give a brief overview of each protocol here. Our paper has the full details."

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