Cryptographic operations (MPC signing)
Institutional Vault uses Blockdaemon’s Advanced MPC Threshold Security Module (TSM) to perform threshold signing. Private keys are split across multiple independent policy nodes and are never reconstructed on a single machine. Blockdaemon MPC solutions are based on public research (some of which was performed by the Blockdaemon team), this includes protocols from the following research papers:
- [MRZ15] Payman Mohassel, Mike Rosulek, Ye Zhang: Fast and Secure Three-party Computation: The Garbled Circuit Approach. CCS 2015.
- [WRK17] Xiao Wang, Samuel Ranellucci, Jonathan Katz: Authenticated Garbling and Efficient Maliciously Secure Two-Party Computation. CCS 2017.
- [DJNP+18] Ivan Damgård, Thomas Pelle Jakobsen, Jesper Buus Nielsen, Jakob Illeborg Pagter, Michael Bæksvang Østergård: Fast Threshold ECDSA with Honest Majority. SCN 2020.
- [DKLs19] Jack Doerner, Yashvanth Kondi, Eysa Lee, Abhishek Shelat: Threshold ECDSA from ECDSA Assumptions: The Multiparty Case. IEEE S&P 2019.
- [DKLs23] Jack Doerner, Yashvanth Kondi, Eysa Lee, Abhishek Shelat: Threshold ECDSA in Three Rounds. IEEE S&P 2024.
MPC signing operations
| Operation | Curve / parameters | MPC protocol | Typical use |
|---|---|---|---|
| ECDSA | secp256k1 | DKLs23 | EVM networks, Bitcoin-style signing |
| EdDSA | Edwards25519 | SCHNORR | Ed25519-based chains and system signatures |
Round Complexity ECDSA (ECDSA secp256k1)
This setup implies seven rounds for ECDSA:
- One round for exchanging metadata.
- Three rounds for generating OTs.
- Three rounds for the actual MPC signing protocol.
Round Complexity Schnorr (ed25519)
This setup implies four rounds for Schnorr:
- One round for exchanging metadata.
- Three rounds for the actual MPC signing protocol (as it is dishonest majority; honest majority would reduce this to two).
Note: Approver intent signatures are not produced by the MPC cluster. Approvers typically sign intents with standard user keys (e.g. ECDSA P-256) which are verified by policy nodes before any MPC transaction signature is produced.
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Updated 7 months ago