Data Ownership Protocol is proud to announce the launch of our Trusted Setup Ceremony — and now, our vibrant community is being invited to get involved.

 

Other major crypto projects including Zcash and Ethereum have previously held similar ceremonies, and they play a vital role in improving security.

 

The implementation of private wallets in DOP’s ecosystem depends on complex UTXO balances. By taking part in the Trusted Setup Ceremony, you’ll be helping to construct new zero-knowledge circuits that create this structure.

 

To participate in the ceremony, first go to https://ceremony.dop.org/. You can make a contribution by signing in using X or Github, and you’ll also have access to a dashboard where you can monitor the activity of other contributors.

 

Once you join the ceremony, your computer will be involved in an intense cryptographic operation that will take one or two hours to complete, depending on your processing power. It’s recommended that you make a contribution overnight — and it’s important to stress that you’ll be able to pause and resume activity at any time.

 

So… what exactly will you be doing? 

 

Well, DOP users from all over the world will be asked to contribute a random number, which is then used to create an even bigger random figure. No one — including DOP’s team — will know what this final value is.

 

This is crucial for guaranteeing that our protocol remains as private and secure as possible. Once complete, it’ll be possible for transactions to be verified without full details being disclosed, an essential feature as we strive to enable selective transparency for all. The Trusted Setup Ceremony will also boost decentralization, and make it prohibitively difficult for one malicious actor to gain control over the whole network.

 

Our Trusted Setup Ceremony grows in significance with every person who gets involved. If just one individual took part, we would need to rely on them to be honest — and hope that they destroy the valuable information that’s created. But the beauty of the ceremony is this: if 100,000 people contribute, 99,999 of them could be dishonest and it wouldn’t matter. It takes just one honest individual to make it a success.

 

Once the ceremony has concluded, an encrypted code will be received that is formally entered into the protocol — adding an additional layer of security. It’s like mashing the keyboard to create a new password while blindfolded, and making it irretrievable for everybody including yourself.

 

Let’s wrap up by taking a look at how this fits into DOP’s wider roadmap for 2024.

 

The Trusted Setup Ceremony is going to run for one week, and it’ll be concluded ahead of the protocol undergoing a thorough security audit by Hacken. Once that has been finalized, with the auditor’s report made public, attention will turn to the mainnet launch.

 

Making a contribution is a natural next step if you’ve already participated in our testnet, as it means you’ll be on the ground floor of something truly special. 

Follow us on social media and join our official Telegram group for the latest updates — and if you’d like to share your feedback, or have any questions, email the team: support@dop.org.