Two-factor authentication for the Bitcoin protocol

Abstract

We show how to realize two-factor authentication for a Bitcoin wallet employing the two-party ECDSA signature protocol adapted from MacKenzie & Reiter (2004). We also present a prototypic implementation of a Bitcoin wallet that offers both: two-factor authentication and verification over a separate channel. Since we use a smart phone as the second authentication factor, our solution can be used with hardware already available to most users and the user experience is quite similar to the existing online banking authentication methods.