BAAR: A framework for blockchain-based anonymous and revocable user authentication scheme

Blockchain-based systems increasingly require authentication mechanisms that simultaneously preserve user privacy, support accountability, and enable efficient credential revocation. However, most existing anonymous authentication schemes rely on pairing-based cryptography which introduce high computational overhead and limit deploy ability on widely adopted blockchain platforms such as Ethereum. This paper presents BAAR, a Blockchain-based Anonymous and Revocable authentication framework designed entirely within the discrete logarithm setting over the secp256k1 elliptic curve. BAAR integrates Pedersen vector commitments, Schnorr-based zero-knowledge proofs, and a Merkle-tree-based dynamic accumulator to support anonymous and unlinkable authentication with selective attribute disclosure and public, auditable revocation. Authentication and proof verification are performed off-chain, while the blockchain maintains only a compact revocation state, significantly reducing on-chain computation and gas costs. A formal security analysis demonstrates unforgeability, unlinkability, attribute privacy, and revocation soundness under standard cryptographic assumptions in the random oracle model. A prototype implementation on Ethereum confirms that BAAR achieves low gas consumption, logarithmic-time revocation, and scalable performance with respect to both the number of users and attributes. These results indicate that BAAR provides a practical balance between strong privacy guarantees and deploy ability, making it suitable for real-world blockchain-based identity and access-control systems.

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Publication Details

Journal
PLoS ONE
Published
2026-03-31
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0343696
Primary Topic
Cryptography and Data Security
Type
article
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article

BAAR: A framework for blockchain-based anonymous and revocable user authentication scheme

Sheeraz Akram, Muhammad Ahmed, Furkh Zeshan, Adnan Ahmad
PLoS ONE
Cryptography and Data Security
article

BAAR: A framework for blockchain-based anonymous and revocable user authentication scheme

Sheeraz Akram, Muhammad Ahmed, Furkh Zeshan, Adnan Ahmad
article en

Abstract

Blockchain-based systems increasingly require authentication mechanisms that simultaneously preserve user privacy, support accountability, and enable efficient credential revocation. However, most existing anonymous authentication schemes rely on pairing-based cryptography which introduce high computational overhead and limit deploy ability on widely adopted blockchain platforms such as Ethereum. This paper presents BAAR, a Blockchain-based Anonymous and Revocable authentication framework designed entirely within the discrete logarithm setting over the secp256k1 elliptic curve. BAAR integrates Pedersen vector commitments, Schnorr-based zero-knowledge proofs, and a Merkle-tree-based dynamic accumulator to support anonymous and unlinkable authentication with selective attribute disclosure and public, auditable revocation. Authentication and proof verification are performed off-chain, while the blockchain maintains only a compact revocation state, significantly reducing on-chain computation and gas costs. A formal security analysis demonstrates unforgeability, unlinkability, attribute privacy, and revocation soundness under standard cryptographic assumptions in the random oracle model. A prototype implementation on Ethereum confirms that BAAR achieves low gas consumption, logarithmic-time revocation, and scalable performance with respect to both the number of users and attributes. These results indicate that BAAR provides a practical balance between strong privacy guarantees and deploy ability, making it suitable for real-world blockchain-based identity and access-control systems.

PLoS ONEVol. 21(3)
COMSATS University Islamabad (PK), Imam Mohammad ibn Saud Islamic University (SA)
Peace, Justice and strong institutions
Openalex Percentile: Top 37%
Cryptography and Data Security
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BAAR: A framework for blockchain-based anonymous and revocable user authentication scheme — Sheeraz Akram, Muhammad Ahmed, et al. · PLoS ONE (2026) | TGRS Research Map | TGRS