Securing Bitcoin wallets via a new DSA / ECDSA threshold signature scheme

The Bitcoin ecosystem has suffered frequent thefts and losses affecting both businesses and individuals. Due to the irreversibility, automation, and pseudonymity of transactions, Bitcoin currently lacks support for the sophisticated internal control systems deployed by modern businesses to deter fraud. To address this problem, we present the first threshold signature scheme compatible with Bitcoin’s ECDSA signatures and show how distributed Bitcoin wallets can be built using this primitive. For businesses, we show how our distributed wallets can be used to systematically eliminate single points of failure at every stage of the flow of bitcoins through the system. For individuals, we design, implement, and evaluate a two-factor secure Bitcoin wallet.

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