2024/03/14 by Dario Maddaloni, Maddaloni, Dario, Riccardo Marchesin +3
Computer Science · #Blockchain Technology Applications and Security #Cryptography and Security (cs.CR) #FOS: Computer and information sciences
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2403.09880
openalex publication_date 2024/03/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
We consider the execution of smart contracts on Bitcoin. There, every contract step corresponds to appending to the blockchain a new transaction that spends the output representing the old contract state, creating a new one for the updated state. This standard procedure requires the contract participants to pay transaction fees for every execution step. In this paper, we introduce a protocol that moves most of the execution of a Bitcoin contract off-chain. When all participants follow this protocol, they are able to save on transaction fees, drastically reducing them. By contrast, whenever adversaries try to disrupt the off-chain execution, any honest participant is still able to enforce the correct contract behaviour, by continuing its execution on-chain.