Overview

What is a wallet?

Similarly to a physical wallet, a digital asset wallet stores your funds and digital assets.

When transacting with assets in your digital asset wallet, you need a public key and a private key. Keys are cryptographically generated strings of characters.

A public key is a public address that assets can be sent to. It is a way of identifying your wallet. In contrast, a private key is a personal code which is used to authorize transactions from your wallet.

It is essential that your private keys remain private to prevent malicious actors from accessing your wallets.

Palisade provides a secure platform for keeping these keys and wallets safe.

How does Palisade keep your wallets secure?

Palisade generates wallets and stores keys using one of two sophisticated storage types: Hardware Security Modules (HSMs) or Multi-Party Computation (MPC).

Hardware Security Modules (HSMs)

HSMs are secure, tamper-resistant hardware devices specifically designed to manage, process, and store cryptographic keys. When wallets are generated and housed within HSMs in Palisade, they are enveloped in layers of cryptographic protection, ensuring their resilience against unauthorized access and potential external vulnerabilities. This methodology provides a fortified environment, minimizing the risk of compromise or exposure of the sensitive cryptographic material.

Multi-Party Computation (MPC)

Alternatively, wallets can be generated and protected using MPC, a cryptographic protocol that allows multiple parties to jointly compute a function over their inputs while keeping them private. Within Palisade, MPC is implemented to split wallet keys into multiple shares, distributing them across isolated environments. This ensures that even if one environment is compromised, the entire wallet remains secure as no single share holds the complete key. This distribution enhances security by requiring multiple shares to reconstruct the original key, thereby increasing protection against unauthorized access and data breaches.

Which storage type is preferable?

Users have the flexibility to opt for their desired wallet generation and key storage methodology, depending on their specific security requirements, operational needs, and risk assessments.

Regardless of the chosen method, Palisade maintains a high standard of security protocols and access controls to ensure the utmost protection and confidentiality of the wallets, reinforcing the robustness of the overall digital asset security infrastructure.