City Research Online

Abstract

As blockchains gain traction in managing financial assets, robust authentication mechanisms become essential. Traditional public-private key authentication poses risks of key mismanagement, leading to significant financial losses. At the same time, in the non-blockchain context, systems like OpenID Connect (OIDC) provide user-friendly authentication with identity recovery in the traditional Web. However, they rely on a single trusted party, raising privacy concerns when applied to blockchains. In this paper, we present PEACE, an authentication mechanism for blockchains that combines the practicality of traditional Web systems with decentralization and privacy-preservation, building on a recent groundbreaking zkLogin protocol of Baldimtsi et al. (ACM CCS 2024). The protocol frees users from managing cryptographic material without giving away fund custody or relying on a single party. We detail PEACE’s design, prove its properties in the Universal Composability framework, and present a real-world implementation compatible with existing OIDC deployments and the Ethereum blockchain.

Publication Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Additional Information:	© 2026. Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
Publisher Keywords:	Authentication, Privacy, Blockchains, Zero-Knowledge Proofs, OpenID Connect
Subjects:	Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science
Departments:	School of Science & Technology School of Science & Technology > Department of Computer Science School of Science & Technology > Department of Computer Science > Software Reliability
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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