NEAR MPC — Network & Security Overview

How the NEAR Multi-Party Computation (MPC) signing network is structured, secured, and independently verifiable.

NEAR's MPC network (Chain Signatures) lets a NEAR account sign transactions on other chains with no single party ever holding the private key. The key is split across independent operators, and a signature is valid only when a threshold of them cooperate.

Live from the v1.signer contract on NEAR mainnet.

Who operates the nodes?

Several independent entities. See the live operator page for the full list.

How are the key shares generated?

By a fully distributed key generation protocol — no trusted dealer, and the full private key never exists on any machine. DKG details →

Can operators collude to leak the root private key?

Not unless at least a threshold of them collude — the root key is never assembled anywhere, and a single operator's share reveals nothing about it. Furthermore, nodes running in Intel TDX (TEE) prevent the operator from accessing its own keyshare at all. See the live TEE count above.

How does the network change (governance)?

Adding or removing an operator, or changing the threshold, requires an on-chain vote by the existing operators. No single party can change it alone.

What if operators go offline?

Signing continues while a threshold of operators are available; fewer just means a failed signature, not a key compromise.

Signing schemes

• ECDSA / secp256k1 — Bitcoin, Ethereum & EVM chains.
• EdDSA / Ed25519 — Solana and other Ed25519 chains.
• Confidential key derivation / BLS12-381.

Has the code been audited?

Yes. We strive to have every feature and critical code path independently audited. Public reports by Trail of Bits:

• MPC / Chain Signatures — the contract and signing network.
• PedPoP+ — the distributed key generation protocol.
• Confidential Key Derivation — the BLS12-381 CKD scheme.

near contract call-function as-read-only v1.signer \
  state json-args {} network-config mainnet now