BlockTorrent: A Blockchain Enabled Privacy-Preserving Data Availability Protocol for Multi-stakeholder Scenarios

As industries across the globe continue to digitize their processes, the need for a mechanism to share private data between multiple stakeholders is becoming increasingly apparent. However, sharing data poses challenges around privacy and accessibility, particularly in the event of disputes between stakeholders with a shared interest, such as a supply chain. Auditors currently rely on stakeholders' compliance in order to verify data. Malicious parties may falsify the data before passing it onto the auditor. Using supply chains as a case study we present BlockTorrent, a protocol to address these challenges and help facilitate data sharing between supply chain participants. BlockTorrent allows participants to securely share their data in near real-time with other participants without the risk of information leakage or allowing the falsification of data, whilst guaranteeing data availability for auditors. This is achieved using a novel combination of distributed storage and on-chain secret sharing. This paper provides an implementation and evaluation of BlockTorrent, highlighting its performance and a security discussion. Lastly, we provide a discussion on the privacy challenges that were considered when designing BlockTorrent.

Automated summary

This paper discusses the increasing need for mechanisms to share private data securely among multiple stakeholders in various industries as they undergo digital transformation. It introduces the BlockTorrent protocol as a solution for sharing data securely in supply chains using distributed storage and on-chain secret sharing. The protocol ensures data availability for auditors and addresses privacy challenges in data sharing processes.