Decentralized Micropayment Consolidation

We propose a novel protocol for aggregating micropayments in a networked environment. The protocol is based on the idea of debt consolidation and is fully decentralized. We propose client-server and serverless versions of the protocol. We also analyze the mathematical properties of the protocol. Finally, we show how basic cryptographic techniques can be used to support the operation of the protocol in an untrusted environment. 1 Introduction The rapid growth of computer networks and the popularity of network-based applications like email or WWW have dramatically increased the number of interactions between network users. Many of those interactions are commercial in character and result in purchases of goods of various kinds. The problem of billing for such purchases is one of the central problems of the emerging area of electronic commerce [11]. Especially difficult is the issue of billing for micropayments: transactions of a very low monetary value. Micropayments are, however, pot..