STEB: A secure service trading ecosystem based on blockchain

A service can be an intangible commodity in which no physical goods are transferred from the seller to the buyer. However, traditional trading platforms have many limitations in trading services due to dishonest buyers and brokers. In this paper, we propose a service trading ecosystem based on blockchain, named STEB, which combines blockchain, smart contract, encryption, and digital authentication techniques for service trading. In addition, a dual-chain architecture, which contains two types of blockchains, namely TraChain and SerChain, and a hierarchical encryption scheme of the data on the chain, are proposed to ensure the integrity of transaction data and fine-grained privacy protection of users. Furthermore, we describe a new set of smart contracts to ensure safe transactions for the entire service trading. Security analysis and simulation results confirm that the proposed STEB can achieve more efficient contract execution and enhance service transaction privacy.