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Protocols
DKG
Key Rotation

Key rotation

The DKG required network participants to rotate their shared private signing keys in an effort to keep the network secure. On a new session, the new authorities (from validators or collators) are selected and the next authorities are selected.

1. These next authorities run keygen protocol discussed above and output a new group keypair on-chain, denoted next_dkg_public_key.
2. The current authorities (having already run this process in the step before) see this event and if it is time to refresh, they begin to sign the next_dkg_public_key with their key, the dkg_public_key.
3. The signature from the active keypair of the next keypair is posted on-chain.
4. Once this signature is posted, anyone can propagate it.
• Any relayer.
• Any user who wants to update the governor of their contract.

Key rotation flow

The on-chain keys are rotate every session, this is done so that the DKG validators and network validators are aligned. At the end of the session, the dkg-gadget triggers the process to generate a new key. The new key is generated by the new on-chain authorities, these authorities then work together to generate a new key and signature.