Mithril's approach to enhancing blockchain efficiency without sacrificing security

Mithril's approach to enhancing blockchain efficiency without sacrificing security

Enhancing a blockchain’s efficiency while maintaining robust security is a constant challenge. Security is crucial for all blockchain protocols to safeguard the integrity, confidentiality, and authenticity of transactions and user data.

Input Output Global (IOG) continues to innovate to solve that challenge by developing Mithril – a protocol that streamlines the speed and efficiency of data synchronization between #blockchain applications without sacrificing security.

Read on to learn about Mithril and the features that contribute to the chain's security.

What is Mithril?

Mithril introduces a stake-based threshold multi-signature (STM) scheme that significantly reduces the time required for node synchronization by retrieving and restoring a certified snapshot of the current blockchain state.

The protocol’s use cases include data synchronization within light wallets, secure voting, and data exchange between sidechains.

How Mithril maintains security

Mithril's commitment to security begins with its core design principles and technical characteristics. The protocol leverages Cardano's proof-of-stake mechanism and maintains security through a validation process that involves signers and an aggregator to create the STM scheme in the following sequence:

1. Signers that run alongside the #Cardano node create key pairs and share verification keys with the aggregator and other signers.
2. Signers compute the data to sign and generate up to m signatures based on a lottery process depending on stake and a verifiable random function (where m is also a predefined protocol parameter).
3. The aggregator picks k received signatures (where k is also a predefined protocol parameter).
4. Signatures are aggregated in a multi-signature that can be verified by a single elliptic curve operation against a Merkle tree representation of the verification keys.
5. The aggregator distributes a snapshot made of the certificate and the actual signed data to the client that verifies its authenticity and restores a Cardano full node.

Features supporting Mithril’s security

Mithril ensures the security of its STM scheme through the following features:

• a manageable and efficient signing process through the control of stake-based signers’ eligibility
• a combination of the signature mechanism with a random selection process that ensures that signatures are generated by fairly, verifiably, and randomly selected users
• efficient signature aggregation and verification that reduces computational overhead
• key registration and Merkle tree organization that further enhance security, keeping verification processes efficient, even in large communities

Learn more about Mithril

Want to learn more about Mithril and how it facilitates strong security settings? Read this blog post to learn more.

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