Secure Multi-Party Computation (sMPC) is a cryptographic technique that allows multiple parties to jointly compute a function over their inputs while keeping them private. It is based on the idea of sharing and combining data without revealing anything more than what is necessary. Using sMPC, each party can securely share input data with other participants in the computation, allowing for secure calculations between these parties without needing to reveal any sensitive information.
sMPC works by breaking up the computation into “shares”, which are individual pieces of encrypted data that represent part of the overall result but not enough to be useful on its own. Then, each participant takes one or more shares and uses it as part of their calculation before sending back their results in another set of shares that cannot be decoded until all participants have contributed their parts. This ensures privacy since no single participant can see what anyone else has calculated or shared during this process.
In cryptocurrency applications, Secure Multi-Party Computation (sMPC) can be used for many tasks such as threshold signatures and decentralized trustless exchanges where two parties agree on a transaction without ever having to reveal sensitive information like addresses or balances. In addition, it enables developers to build dapps with privacy features built into the core infrastructure layer instead of relying solely on layers above the blockchain protocol. As such, sMPC offers an important tool for developing secure distributed systems with enhanced privacy capabilities compared to traditional centralized architectures.