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Glossary

Ethereum Concepts

  • Validator: A public key participating in proof-of-stake validation of Ethereum. In Phase 0, validators are expected to perform attestation & block proposal duties for beacon chain blocks.
  • Validator Client (VC): Software to perform the duties of Validators. The VC has access to the private key of the Validators.
  • Remote Signer (RS): Software responsible for Ethereum private key management, specifically for signing Ethereum messages such as blocks, attestations, etc. The RS runs a server that accepts incoming requests to sign over such messages.

Cryptography Concepts

  • Key Share: A single key that is part of a threshold signature scheme.
  • Signature Share: Signature over some data from a single key share. Multiple such signature shares need to be combined to generate a complete signature.

Distributed Validator Concepts

  • Distributed Validator (DV): A group of participants collboratively performing the duties of a Validator. The Validator's private key is secret-shared among the participants so that a complete signature cannot be formed without some majority threshold of participants.
  • Co-Validator: A threshold BLS public key participating in the DV protocol for a particular Validator.
  • Distributed Validator Client (DVC): Software to participate as a Co-Validator by running the DV protocol (or, to participate as multiple Co-Validators that are each associated with a different Validator). The DVC has access to the private key(s) of the Co-Validator(s), which is(are) the secret-shared threshold private key of the respective Validator(s).

Example

An example for usage of terms described above:

  • Ethereum Validator with pubkey 0xa5c91... is operated as a Distributed Validator.
  • 4 Co-Validators are participating in the Distributed Validator for Validator 0xa5c91....
  • The private key associated with 0xa5c91... is split using 3-of-4 secret-sharing among the 4 Co-Validators such that a 3-of-4 threshold signature scheme is setup.
    • In simpler terms, the private key for 0xa5c91... is split into 4 pieces, each in the custody of one of the Co-Validators such that at least 3 of them have to collaborate to produce a signature from 0xa5c91....
  • Each Co-Validator is running the Distributed Validator Client software to participate the in the Distributed Validator.