  The Ethereum blockchain as a decentralized platform is so successful that
many applications deployed on it. However, for the inherent transparency
properties and the lack of privacy, deploying a financial application on top of
it is always a challenge. In this paper, we tackle this challenge and propose
an anonymous sealed-bid auction protocol based on time-released encryption atop
Consortium Blockchain. We adopt a strict digital certificate-based identity
mechanism of the consortium blockchain to permit legitimate participants, and
utilize the blind signature based on elliptic curve technology to allowing
anonymous participation. Moreover, a timed release public key encryption
algorithm is adopted to encrypt bids and prevent auctioneer from colluding with
bidders. This is completely different from the method (zero-knowledge proof)
used in other papers to prevent collusion between auctioneer and bidder. We
provide a specific analysis of our protocol, which shows that our protocol
meets anonymity and applicability.
