An electronic cash (e-cash) scheme lets a user withdraw money from a bank and then spend it anonymously. E-cash can be used only if it can be securely and fairly exchanged for electronic goods or services. In this paper, we introduce and realize endorsed e-cash. An endorsed e-coin consists of a lightweight endorsement x and the rest of the coin which is meaningless without x. We reduce the problem of exchanging e-cash to that of exchanging endorsements. We demonstrate the usefulness of endorsed e-cash by exhibiting simple and efficient solutions to two important problems: (1) optimistic and unlinkable fair exchange of e-cash for digital goods and services; and (2) onion routing with incentives and accountability for the routers. Finally, we show how to represent a set of n endorsements using just one endorsement; this means that the complexity of the fair exchange protocol for n coins is the same as for one coin, making e-cash all the more scalable and suitable for applications. Our fair exchange of multiple e-coins protocol can be applied to fair exchanges of (almost) any secrets.

We create a credential system that lets a user anonymously authenticate at most $n$ times in a single time period. A user withdraws a dispenser of n e-tokens. She shows an e-token to a verifier to authenticate herself; each e-token can be used only once, however, the dispenser automatically refreshes every time period. The only prior solution to this problem, due to Damgård et al. [29], uses protocols that are a factor of k slower for the user and verifier, where k is the security parameter. Damgård et al. also only support one authentication per time period, while we support n. Because our construction is based on e-cash, we can use existing techniques to identify a cheating user, trace all of her e-tokens, and revoke her dispensers. We also offer a new anonymity service: glitch protection for basically honest users who (occasionally) reuse e-tokens. The verifier can always recognize a reused e-token; however, we preserve the anonymity of users who do not reuse e-tokens too often.