Distributed Key Generation Protocols

Distributed Key Generation (DKG) solves the trusted dealer problem in threshold cryptography. Without DKG, a central party must generate the key pair and distribute shares, knowing the full private key momentarily. DKG allows n parties to jointly generate a public/private key pair through a protocol where no single party learns the private key, even the protocol coordinator.

Pedersen DKG was the first practical DKG protocol, published in 1991. Each of the n parties generates a random secret s_i and runs a Verifiable Secret Sharing (VSS) protocol to share it. Each party broadcasts commitments to their polynomial coefficients. After all parties share their contributions, the combined secret is the sum of all s_i values, and each party holds a share of this sum.