SILMARILS-MV is a new multi-verifier signature scheme that achieves information-theoretic security for permissioned blockchains without trusted authorities or quantum channels. Addressing limitations of current solutions, often inflated consensus traffic or key transfer restrictions, the system offers strong unforgeability and linear aggregation with compact signatures measuring 32 bytes.

Benchmarks demonstrate sharp performance gains; a Rust HotStuff prototype with 100 validators commits 2.8 times more transactions per second than existing methods while reducing cryptographic CPU usage by 67x, alongside verification speeds of only 2.4 microseconds, offering substantial improvements in scalability and efficiency for blockchain applications requiring vital authentication.

SILMARILS-MV Demonstrates Scalable Throughput and Reduced Cryptographic Overhead

With a committee size of 100 validators, SILMARILS-MV achieves a peak throughput of 8.08 kilotransactions per second, a 2.8x improvement over ML-DSA-44 under identical conditions. This breakthrough overcomes limitations previously imposed on permissioned blockchains that relied on vulnerable encryption or impractical trusted authorities for secure key issuance; it now accomplishes this via threshold notarization scaling to any number of validators without increasing costs.

The system’s approach delivers constant-size certificates of just 32 bytes, reducing cryptographic CPU usage by up to 67x compared to alternatives and enabling verification in only 2.4 microseconds while maintaining information-theoretic security against adversaries with unlimited computing power. Threshold notarization requires only 71 kilobytes of authentication traffic per validator per block, twenty-two times less than ML-DSA-44 demands from verifiers. Monte Carlo attacks confirm these results align closely with theoretical security bounds.

These findings demonstrate forgery success rates within one standard error of predicted values even at prime numbers as high as 257. External auditors can verify certificates between 22.4 and 23 milliseconds after commitment, regardless of committee size ranging from four to one hundred validators; the system operates efficiently with up to 1000 validators in typical analytic scenarios needing minimal overhead.

SILMARILS-MV utilizes Threshold Notarization for Scalable Key Issuance

A novel approach to blockchain authentication centres around threshold notarization, akin to requiring multiple trusted parties to co-sign a document mathematically without revealing individual signatures. This technique allows key issuance via perfectly secure multi-party computation involving validators, scaling with constant certificate sizes. Specifically, this method moves away from reliance on computationally intensive encryption or centralised authorities for security.

Honest verifiers accept forged or invalid signatures with probability at most Q/q + 1/(q-1), even against adversaries corrupting up to ω verifiers while observing all decisions. The scheme offers strong unforgeability, non-repudiation, transfer across unlimited hops, and linear aggregation of signatures; keys are issued through perfectly secure MPC for t

SILMARILS-MV balances unconditional security with limited validator fault tolerance

Permissioned blockchains increasingly adopt multi-verifier signatures for enhanced security, but achieving truly unconditional security necessitates complex key issuance protocols. This system addresses this challenge by employing threshold notarization, however its reliance on perfectly secure multiparty computation introduces a constraint limiting fault tolerance to less than one third of validators potentially hindering deployment in scenarios demanding higher durability. Despite acknowledging this limitation, the approach remains important for specific use cases and offers a pathway towards unconditionally secure signatures without trusted authorities or quantum infrastructure.

Instead of vulnerable encryption or centralised authorities, SILMARILS-MV establishes a new standard for permissioned blockchain security using threshold notarization; multiple validators mathematically co-sign data without revealing individual participation to issue keys via perfectly secure multi-party computation. This delivers unconditionally secure signatures while sharply reducing communication overhead compared to methods like ML-DSA-44, enabling more efficient network operation at scale. The team’s work raises questions regarding optimisation of key issuance in scenarios demanding higher fault tolerance than currently achievable with this system.

SILMARILS-MV is a multi-verifier signature scheme that achieves unconditional security within permissioned blockchains by utilizing virtual anchors and secret functionals held by verifiers. It allows for the creation of 32-byte signatures verified in 2.4 microseconds, even when up to ω verifiers are compromised and all decisions are observed; honest verifiers will accept invalid signatures only with limited probability (Q/q + 1/(q-1)). This approach offers strong unforgeability and non-repudiation while reducing communication costs compared to other methods, though key issuance currently requires less than one third of validators to be functioning correctly.

👉 More information
🗞 SILMARILS-MV: Information-Theoretically Secure Multi-Verifier Signatures with Dealer-Free Key Issuance and Linear Aggregation for Permissioned Blockchains
✍️ Khadijeh Bagheri and Hassan Khodaiemehr (The University of British Columbia); Chen Feng (Khodaiemehr and C)
🧠 ArXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.31814

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