Privacy-preserving payments for peer-to-peer networks

Abstract

A peer-to-peer content provision network is disclosed which implements a privacy-preserving payment mechanism for rewarding actors in the network (for example, a content supplier, a content distributor and storage-contributing peers). To reward some or all of those actors, a user device obtains, from a token service, anonymous digital payment tokens which include an ephemeral public key. Payment is achieved by adding an assignment layer to the token which involves combining a payee ephemeral public key with the token, and applying a digital signature to the combination using the ephemeral private key corresponding to the ephemeral public key in the token. Subsequent assignments can be made by the payee by adding a further assignment layer to the token using a payee ephemeral private key which pairs with the payee ephemeral public key in the received token. A payment service can divide a payment from the user between actors in the network.