MPC Wallet
A wallet that uses secure multi-party computation to split key-management across multiple parties or devices, removing any single point holding the complete private key.
An MPC wallet applies secure multi-party computation — often implemented via a threshold signature scheme (see Kaavon's "Threshold Signature Scheme (TSS)" glossary definition) — to wallet key management, splitting a private key into separate shares distributed across different devices, servers, or parties, none of which ever holds the complete key. Transactions are signed through a distributed protocol among the share-holders, rather than by any single device producing a signature alone.
MPC wallets offer an alternative to both a single-key wallet (where one compromised device or seed phrase loses everything) and a traditional smart-contract multisig (see Kaavon's "Multi-Signature Wallet" glossary definition), since MPC can work with standard account-based blockchains without requiring special on-chain contract logic, and can support flexible policies like changing the signing threshold or rotating key shares without an on-chain transaction. MPC wallet security still depends on how key shares are distributed and protected individually, since collusion or compromise of enough shares can defeat the scheme just as it can with multisig.
Examples
- An MPC wallet can let a user sign transactions using key shares split between their phone and a cloud-based backup service, without either party alone being able to move funds.
- Because MPC wallet signatures don't require special on-chain contract logic, they can work on blockchains or account types that don't natively support smart-contract-based multisig.