Trusted Setup - Securing Iron Fish

Trusted Setups are critical to the security of the Iron Fish zero-knowledge-proof system, and we want you to participate ⚡

Let’s dig into the details, starting with — what is a trusted setup ceremony?

What is a trusted setup? 

We’ll be looking at trusted setups from a high level, for a technical deep dive, check out this article from Vitalik Buterin.

Iron Fish uses zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) to prove the validity of transactions without revealing information about the transaction itself, such as the sender, receiver, or amount. A trusted setup ceremony generates the proving and verifying keys ZKPs require to create and verify proofs for transactions.

Trusted setups produce secure proving and verifying keys by distributing the creation of those keys among numerous participants. This so-called “multi-party computation” is critical, as it makes it effectively impossible for a potential attacker to reconstruct the proving keys and create false proofs. In a trusted setup with multiple participants, as long as one person deletes their contribution to the process — data that is often referred to as “toxic waste” — the proving keys will be secure. For this reason, it's important to involve as many participants as possible, increasing the likelihood that at least one of them discards their toxic waste.

Who can participate? 

Absolutely anyone! You don’t need to have a node or a miner running; you only need to have Iron Fish installed on your system.

Why should I participate? 

The trusted setup offers every community member an opportunity to help secure the zero-knowledge proofs integral to the Iron Fish network. Our foundation is our community — the protocol would not exist without you, and by participating in the trusted setup, you help strengthen privacy on Iron Fish.

How do I participate? 

We'll release more details soon, but participation will entail running one command, entering some random data, and that's it.

When can I participate? 

To give everyone sufficient time to participate, the trusted setup ceremony will run from February 13th through March 3rd.

Stay tuned for more details by following us on Twitter, joining our Discord server, and signing up for email updates.

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