A 2020 perspective on A fair contract signing protocol with blockchain support

Abstract

The development of the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/computer-science/blockchain" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">blockchain</a> with its different virtues (decentralized trust, auditability, accessibility, immutability of their operations, etc.) has allowed centralized applications to find a solution to their problems, such as trust, scalability, etc. One of these applications is the electronic signature of contracts which is a key point for the deployment of electronic transactions in the field of e-commerce. We have used the blockchain for contract-signing to avoid the use of centralized trusted third-parties, in a simple way, and where the use of any blockchain solution, allowing data to be published at a reasonable cost, can be easily integrated in our proposal, involving Bitcoin-based solutions (e.g., <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/computer-science/litecoin" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Litecoin</a> or Dash) or <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/computer-science/ethereum" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Ethereum</a>. Our results can help other authors to consider more factors, and not just the technological aspects, when selecting a blockchain solution.