Master-Thesis

There are many digital currencies around. One of the most famous are Bitcoins, invented in 2008 by the pseudonymous developer Satoshi Nakamoto. Any Bitcoin is defined as the sequence of all digitally signed transactions that began with its creation through Bitcoin mining. Thus, even though there is some anonymity in the protocol, it is in principle possible to trace all performed transactions. To circumvent this problem various protocols such as Zerocoin have been designed that claim to have full anonymity.

The main goal of this thesis is to analyze selected existing Bitcoin-like protocols in a strong cryptographic context. Own implementations or protocol-improvements can complement the thesis.