A secure versatile light payment system based on blockchain

Ever-increasing transaction costs, serious network congestion, and low transaction rates in the current blockchain systems restrict their extensive use. To relieve from this situation, we present a secure versatile light payment (SVLP) scheme. The SVLP merely employs a digital signature algorithm and a one-way function and has similar security comparing to existing blockchain systems, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. The proposed scheme is of ultra-low power consumption, since the payers and payees only need one-way functions to achieve multiple transactions, instead of the costly digital signature algorithms. Furthermore, the processes of payment and refunding are flexible. This is due to the fact that the denomination in our scheme possesses divisibility and the users need not to verify the preimages on the long chain one-byone. Finally, as the transaction can be taken off-chain and offline, it can be even used in remote areas or geological disasters areas where communication infrastructures are lacked or destroyed. All these features indicate that our scheme is practical and versatile. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.