Randpay: The Technology for Blockchain Micropayments and Transactions Which Require Recipient's Consent

TL;DR

Randpay introduces a blockchain micropayment protocol that requires recipient consent, utilizing a novel zero-output transaction and a lottery ticket concept, enhancing peer-to-peer micropayments without third-party channels.

Contribution

The paper presents Randpay, the first blockchain protocol requiring payee signatures and implementing lottery tickets without third-party facilitation, expanding micropayment and legal transaction capabilities.

Findings

Randpay outperforms Lightning Network in certain micropayment scenarios.

Introduces RandpayUTXO, an infinitely spendable zero output requiring payee signature.

Provides a secure, third-party-free lottery ticket mechanism based on Blum's coin flipping.

Abstract

Randpay is a technology developed in Emercoin for blockchain micropayments that can be more effective in some scenarios than the Lightning Network as we show in the paper. The protocol is based on the concept of Ronald L. Rivest and published in the paper "Electronic Lottery Tickets as Micropayments" (1997). The "lottery ticket" was designed for centralized systems where a trusted third party is required to provide payments, and in some scenarios is also a lottery facilitator. The existing blockchain protocol cannot accommodate peer-to-peer "lottery" micropayments at least without the need to create payment channels, which is analysed in the paper. Therefore, the implementation required the development of an update to the blockchain core. In the result, RandpayUTXO was introduced - infinitely spendable zero output that requires the payee's signature to be published in the blockchain. Randpay is considered to be the first blockchain protocol to require the payee to sign the transaction by their private key. This is a significant feature to improve not only microtransactions but also extend the use of the blockchain for legal deeds that require a payee's consent to be recognised in legal applications. The second important innovation of this research is the implementation of Blum's "coin flipping by telephone" problem to design a "lottery ticket" that does not require any third party to facilitate the lottery. The paper offers an API description, an analysis of the mathematical model, and proof of how "lottery" can be beneficial. There is also an attack analysis and overview of existing solutions.