Cryptographic Primitives
5 recipes.
The most technical chapter in the cookbook and the most important for any reader who wants to evaluate the project at the engineering level. Five recipes — signatures, proof systems, threshold encryption, MEV-resistant ordering, cross-chain primitives — each one a deliberate position on what is load-bearing, what is swappable, and where the migration path is.
The migration discipline running through every recipe in this chapter: three phases. Phase 1 in production today on classical primitives. Phase 2 hybrid, with hash-based commitments alongside the classical proof. Phase 3 post-quantum end-to-end. Each phase has a specific commitment timeline; each phase has a specific open work item the cookbook is honest about.
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Aggregate validator signatures and account-level signatures, with a hybrid construction in Phase 2 and post-quantum destinations in Phase 3. The hardest single migration is validator-consensus aggregation.
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The proof-system migration is the most user-visible part of the cryptographic migration. The strategy: make it mechanical for the holder.
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Transactions encrypted to a t-of-n threshold of validators. Decryption shares released only after ordering is finalized. The operational difference between a chain that has MEV and one that does not.
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The simplest possible fair-ordering rule and the one easiest to specify in a hostile environment. Sophistication is a future research item, not a launch dependency.
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Validator-committee bridge in Phase 1. Symmetric ZK light clients the destination. The part of the project most likely to take longer than projected.
If you want the part of the chapter that is most likely to take longer than projected, read § 3.5 Cross-Chain Primitives. If you want the part of the chapter that is the structural difference between a chain that has MEV and one that does not, read § 3.3 Threshold Encryption.