To enable multi-asset privacy, namada utilizes zero knowledge proofs that require the generation of public parameters that must be random and unknown to anyone. Someone that would know these parameters, could generate counterfeit proofs. To avoid this scenario, the team behind Zcash invented trusted setup ceremonies. Under the hood, a trusted setup ceremony is a multi-party computation (MPC) that lets many participants contribute randomness to the public parameters in a trustless manner. The setup is secure, as long as one participant is honest; the probability of all participants being malicious decreases dramatically as the number of participants in the ceremony grows. It takes only one.
A trusted setup consists of 2 phases. The first phase is circuit-agnostic, that is, anyone who wants to build a zk-SNARK can use the outputs from this phase to bootstrap their zk-SNARK. This phase is called The Powers of Tau and has already been done by Zcash. The second phase is circuit-specific and this is where we will construct our MASP zk-SNARK.
The acronym zk-SNARK stands for “Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge,” and refers to a proof construction where you can prove possession of certain information to someone else, e.g. a secret key, without revealing that information, and without any interaction between you (the prover) and someone else (the verifier).
We will reward participants for contributing to the security of Namada. More details will be announced via a newsletter. For regulatory reasons, a KYC will be necessary to claim your rewards.
By contributing honestly multiple times, you don’t increase the security of the ceremony. We recommend that you participate only once. You won’t be rewarded for participating multiple times and we reserve the right to waive your rewards if we detect spamming behavior.