The VM never built its chain store, so Initialize dereferenced a nil store and B-Chain could not start at all. What a block settles — the transfers, and the day's running total per destination — is now written in the same commit as the block. Both lived in maps on the heap, so a restart forgot every transfer the chain had released and handed back the whole day's allowance: a restart was a free reset of the cap that bounds what this bridge can move. The counter is cut from the block's own timestamp, so every node closes the window on the same block, and it only ever grew before, which stopped the chain for good once total volume passed the limit. A request's id is now the digest of the transfer it carries, and Verify refuses one where it is not. The id was a label the proposer chose while the replay guard, the daily counter and the release worker all keyed off it, so one deposit could ride in under any number of names. Verify now resolves the parent, refuses one beneath the tip, requires the height and the timestamp to follow it, and registers what it accepted so a follower can verify the second block of a run. It read none of that before. Blocks are bounded and canonically encoded, the chain id is hashed into every block id, and assembly admits exactly what Verify admits, so an uncarryable transfer no longer wedges the proposer. The signer set's threshold is ⌈2n/3⌉ in integers rather than a float that asked for unanimity at three signers and for two of one at one, the bond it declares is enforced where a signer registers, and a replacement takes the slot it replaces. Deleted: the block and request MPC signature carriage, which nothing produced and whose deserializer could not decode a canonical secp256k1 signature, so it could only ever reject; the chain-name list beside the routing table; the confirmation depth and observation time that each node read for itself and then wrote to the wire; a worker pool, a party id and an engine channel nobody read.
mpcvm — M-Chain
M-Chain is the MPC threshold-custody chain. chains/mpcvm is its VM: a
plugin-loaded chain.ChainVM with genesis, validators, block production and
replicated state.
It exists to hold the keys that custody bridged assets on external chains, and to do that on-chain instead of in an off-chain signer cluster.
- vmID
mpcvm=constants.MPCVMID, CB58qCURact1n41FcoNBch8iMVBwc9AWie48D118ZNJ5tBdWrvryS. The plugin binary's filename must be that CB58 — that is how the node resolves aCreateChainTx's vmID to an implementation. A vmID is an immutable one-way door once a chain is created with it;TestVMID_IsCanonicalAndStablepins it and lists every declaration that must move together. - Genesis chain. M-Chain is in the P-Chain chain set at height 0 on every
network (
genesis/configs/*/mchain.json), tracked by validators from boot — not created later by aCreateChainTxsomeone has to remember to submit. - Per LP-134 / LP-7050 there is no T-Chain and no
teleportvm: teleport ISbridgevm(B-Chain, LP-6000), and the FHE half of the retired ThresholdVM isfhevm(F-Chain, LP-8200). Any identifier still naming "T-Chain" or "ThresholdVM-as-a-chain" is stale.
The quorum, and why it is spelled "3-of-5"
A threshold policy has two numbers that differ by one, and confusing them is the defining failure mode of this domain:
| meaning | where it appears | |
|---|---|---|
| K | signers required | operator language, runbooks, genesis policy |
| t | polynomial degree = K−1 | cmp.Keygen, frost.Keygen, stored configs |
Passing an operator's 3 where a library wants t builds a 4-of-5 key.
Nothing errors; three custodians simply cannot sign, and for a key that already
holds funds the only fix is a resharing ceremony with parties that may no
longer exist.
So M-Chain never carries a bare threshold number. Genesis states
"policy": "3-of-5", it decodes to a quorum.Policy, and the degree is
obtained only by calling Policy.Degree(). luxfi/threshold/pkg/quorum is
the one place K and t are allowed to meet.
M-Chain additionally requires 2K > N (types.HasUniqueQuorum). CGGMP21 is
unforgeable against up to N−1 corruptions, so 2-of-5 is cryptographically
sound; but with two disjoint quorums, two halves of the committee could
authorise contradictory releases of the same funds.
The policy must also fit the network's validator set — the committee IS the
validator set, so N cannot exceed the validators that exist to hold shares.
TestMChainPolicyIsSatisfiableByTheGenesisValidatorSet in the node repo
enforces it.
What is on-chain and what is not
| replicated | in the state root | contents | |
|---|---|---|---|
c/ consensus |
yes | yes | key registry, ceremony log, blocks, height index |
n/ node-private |
no | no | this validator's secret key shares |
The registry holds only public values — policy, participants, group public key,
custody address. A share never enters consensus state. State is written the
moment each fact becomes true, so a crash cannot lose the record of who holds
the funds, and Initialize resumes the accepted tip rather than recomputing
genesis.
Blocks are verified, not trusted
- A sign operation carries the signature;
Verifyre-checks it against the group public key already in the registry. A proposer cannot fabricate one without forging ECDSA, and a validator that sat out the ceremony still verifies the result. - A keygen operation carries a proof of possession by the new group key over its own registration. That rules out registering a key you do not control. The declared degree is bound separately, by participants cross-checking the record against their own share — one honest participant is enough to reject a mis-declared key.
- Every block carries its post-state root.
Verifyrecomputes it, so two validators that would diverge cannot both accept.
Leaderless and permissionless
Ceremony ids are derived from the task — H(tag ‖ keyID ‖ digest ‖ sorted signers) — so every validator converges on the same ceremony with no announce
round and no coordinator. The signing quorum is likewise a pure function of the
task, so all nodes agree on which K sign without an election.
The committee is the chain's own validator set. Joining the signing ring is joining the validator set: no allowlist, no operator registry, no admin-gated key ceremony.
Proof
TestBridgeCustody_ThreeOfFive runs five VMs over the real gossip transport: a
real CGGMP21 DKG at degree 2, exactly three of five sign, two decline, the
signature verifies under the group key, and a block carrying it is verified and
accepted by all five — including the two that never touched the ceremony — with
every node ending on the same state root.
Layout
| path | role |
|---|---|
vm.go |
chain.ChainVM: Initialize/resume, BuildBlock, custody API |
custody.go |
ceremony lifecycle — DKG, signing, quorum selection, staging |
state.go |
persisted state: registry, ceremony log, roots, share store |
block.go |
the verified state transition |
wire.go |
native-ZAP struct-is-wire encodings |
transport.go |
gossip router (production) + in-process mesh (tests) |
executor.go |
drives luxfi/threshold protocol handlers |
types/ |
shared ceremony state machine and the 2K > N custody floor |
fhe/ |
TFHE helpers retained for the F-Chain handoff |