mldsa-bench
Benchmarks PQ signing patterns for Lux quasar consensus and the hierarchical quorum architecture of LP-045.
Build
cd github.com/luxfi/threshold
go build ./cmd/mldsa-bench/
Modes
individual
Every validator signs the block hash; verifier verifies all sigs. Baseline — "what it costs if we never aggregate."
committee
Sample k of n validators; those k sign individually. Represents one
cluster in the hierarchical design.
hierarchical
n validators partitioned into clusters. Each cluster signs, clusters
combine into a root QC. Models LP-045 two-layer aggregation.
Measured on a MacBook M3 (10 cores, arm64)
Individual signing (pre-aggregation baseline)
| n | Keygen | Sign (parallel) | Verify (parallel) | Per-validator sign | Sig total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 587 µs | 1.78 ms | 366 µs | 592 µs | 7.3 kB |
| 5 | 1.72 ms | 2.20 ms | 637 µs | 439 µs | 12.1 kB |
| 10 | 1.02 ms | 1.70 ms | 693 µs | 170 µs | 24.2 kB |
| 100 | 14.4 ms | 8.87 ms | 3.57 ms | 89 µs | 242 kB |
Per-validator latency drops as n grows because keygen/sign run in parallel across 10 cores. Raw cost per signature: ~430 µs sign, ~40 µs verify.
Committee (sampled subset signs)
| n | k | Sign | Verify | Sig size |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 100 | 32 | 3.57 ms | 4.14 ms | 77 kB |
| 100 | 64 | 8.05 ms | 6.34 ms | 155 kB |
Hierarchical (LP-045 two-layer)
| n | clusters | cluster size | Sign | Verify | Sig total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 100 | 4 | 25 | 14.7 ms | 5.35 ms | 242 kB |
| 100 | 10 | 10 | 10.0 ms | 5.09 ms | 242 kB |
ML-DSA-65 (NIST Level III)
| n | mode | Sign | Verify | Sig size |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 100 | individual | 25.1 ms | 9.4 ms | 331 kB |
| 100 | hierarchical (4 clusters) | 21.3 ms | 22.6 ms | 331 kB |
Key findings
-
100 validators sign in under 10 ms on a single laptop at ML-DSA-44. No threshold math needed at this stage — it's just parallel individual signatures.
-
Committee sampling (k=32) cuts signing work by 3× vs all-100 signing. This is the LP-045 primary optimization.
-
Hierarchical aggregation is a workload-shaping tool, not a compute reduction. Total compute is the same; it's parallelizable across cluster aggregators and moves the verification cost off the chain's hot path.
-
ML-DSA-65 is ~3× slower than ML-DSA-44 on this hardware. Level III at 100 validators is still under 30 ms per block — fine for Quasar finality at any realistic block time.
Light mnemonic
The harness derives 100 deterministic keypairs from a single 32-byte master seed. No interactive keygen, no mainnet wallet material, no network I/O. Reproducible across runs — same seed yields the same validators.
To use a real mnemonic instead (for localnet tests that need persistence),
swap the seed source for BIP39 → BIP32 → per-validator child derivation.
Running on localnet
The same harness can drive a real network. Start a localnet with netrunner and the bench calls the validator RPCs for actual block-signing timing:
# Start 3-node localnet
cd $LUX/netrunner
./bin/netrunner start-local --num-nodes=3 --network-id=1337
# (After extending mldsa-bench with a --rpc-endpoints flag)
./mldsa-bench -mode=individual -n=3 -level=44 \
-rpc-endpoints=http://127.0.0.1:9650,http://127.0.0.1:9652,http://127.0.0.1:9654
The benchmark then issues quasar.signBlock RPCs to the localnet
validators instead of running in-process.
Usage
# Minimal
./mldsa-bench -mode=individual -n=10
# Full
./mldsa-bench -mode=hierarchical -n=100 -clusters=4 -level=65 -runs=5