Enhancing SCF with Privacy-Preserving and Splitting-Enabled E-Bills on Blockchain

TL;DR

This paper introduces BillChain, a blockchain-based electronic bill system that enables privacy preservation and splitting of E-Bills, addressing key challenges in supply chain finance through novel data structures and cryptographic techniques.

Contribution

The paper proposes a novel data structure called Reverse-HashTree and employs a variant of Paillier cryptosystem to enable privacy-preserving and splitting-enabled E-Bills on blockchain.

Findings

Successfully implements privacy-preserving E-Bills

Enables splitting of E-Bills on blockchain

Enhances supply chain finance applications

Abstract

Electronic Bill (E-Bill) is a rucial negotiable instrument in the form of data messages, relying on the Electronic Bill System (EB System). Blockchain technology offers inherent data sharing capabilities, so it is increasingly being adopted by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the supply chain to build EB systems. However, the blockchain-based E-Bill still face significant challenges: the E-Bill is difficult to split, like non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and sensitive information such as amounts always be exposed on the blockchain. Therefore, to address these issues, we propose a novel data structure called Reverse-HashTree for Re-storing transactions in blockchain. In addition, we employ a variant of the Paillier public-key cryptosystem to ensure transaction validity without decryption, thus preserving privacy. Building upon these innovations, we designed BillChain, an EB system that enhances supply chain finance by providing privacy-preserving and splitting-enabled E-Bills on the blockchain. This work offers a comprehensive and innovative solution to the challenges faced by E-Bills applied in blockchain in the context of supply chain finance.