DKLs.info

This website collects information and resources related to the threshold ECDSA signing schemes of Jack Doerner, Yashvanth Kondi, Eysa Lee, and abhi shelat, otherwise known as DKLs. In May 2023, we introduced a three-round protocol for threshold ECDSA signing with malicious security against a dishonest majority, which information-theoretically UC-realizes a standard threshold signing functionality, assuming ideal commitment and two-party multiplication primitives. You may find a complete description of the protocol, along with a full proof of security and closed-form cost analysis, in eprint 2023/765.

We consider our original t-of-n and 2-of-n threshold ECDSA signing protocols to be subsumed, and recommend against new deployments of these protocols. Nevertheless, the original t-of-n protocol is available as eprint 2019/523, and the 2-of-n protocol is available in revised form as eprint 2018/499.

In addition to our works on threshold ECDSA, we were joined by LaKyah Tyner for a paper on threshold BBS+ signing, which is useful for distributed anonymous credential issuance. This paper shares many techniques with our other works. It is available as eprint 2023/602.

Useful Auxilliary Papers and Techniques

• From OT to OLE with Subquadratic Communication (2025/1722). This work proposes an OLE protocol with significantly reduced communication, at the cost of a few additional rounds as compared to the DKLs OLE protocols. The OLE protocol proposed realizes the same functionality as those proposed in the DKLs papers, and achieves security under the same assumptions.
• An Unstoppable Ideal Functionality for Signatures and a Modular Analysis of the Dolev-Strong Broadcast (2024/1807). This work includes a proof that the DKLs protocols realize a UC signature functionality (in addition to a signing functionality as proven in the original papers).
• Refresh When You Wake Up: Proactive Threshold Wallets with Offline Devices (2019/1328). This work proposes a mechanism that allows the parties in many 2-of-n ECDSA protocols (including ours) to proactively refresh their shares of the signing key and their other secret state, even if some of those parties are offline at the time of refresh. This provides a defense against so-called mobile adversaries.

Our Proof-of-Concept Open Source Implementations

We note that our in-house implementations are only proofs of concept. We make no claim that they are free of bugs or secure in real-world use, and any consequences arising from their use rest with the user.

• DKLs23: Rust code coming soon.
• DKLs19 + DKLs18 with Proactive Key Refresh (2019/1328): Rust code available under the BSD license. Note that this library uses the KOS OT-extension protocol (2015/546), which we consider to be deprecated (see 2022/192).

Third-Party Open Source Implementations

• Silence Laboratories: DKLs23 with Proactive Key Refresh (2019/1328). Rust code available under a custom non-commercial license. Also available on NPM. Trail of Bits audit report available.
• Alore/0xCarbon: DKLs23. Rust code available under Apache or MIT license. Also available on NPM.
• Bold Bitcoin Wallet: DKLs23 (derived from Alore/0xCarbon implementation). Rust code available under the Apache or MIT license.
• Dock Network: DKLsT23. Rust code available under the Apache license.
• Taurus Group: DKLs18. Go code available under the Apache license.
• Coinbase: DKLs18. Go code available under the Apache license. Marked as deprecated by authors.

Known Proprietary Implementations and Deployments

• BlockDaemon: DKLs23. Information available.
• Sodot: DKLs23. Information available (see also: previous documentation).
• Utila: DKLs23. Information available.
• Vultisig: DKLs23 (derived from Silence Laboratories implementation). Information available.
• Lit Protocol: DKLs23 (derived from Silence Laboratories implementation). Information available.
• Metamask: DKLs19. Information available (see also: previous documentation).
• Copper: DKLs23.
• Visa: DKLs19.

About this Website

This website is maintained by Jack Doerner, on behalf of the original DKLs team. Recently, another website (dkls.org) has appeared with information about our protocols. We do not know who created this website, and we are not responsible for its content.

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Die Kinder Lieben spinnen
Don't Keep Losing sleep

Last Updated July 2026