A Crucial Milestone for Privacy-Preserving Blockchain Infrastructure
Telos today announced the official beginning of the Trusted Setup Ceremony for the Telos Privacy Layer, a key milestone for the network and for privacy-preserving blockchain infrastructure. This ceremony is the cryptographic process required before activating private, multi-asset accounts and shielded transactions on Telos. It is designed so that no single party, organization, or developer, including Telos itself, can ever compromise the privacy guarantees of the system. Once complete, the resulting parameters will underpin the zero-knowledge (ZK) circuits that enable private transfers, delegated deposits, and privacy-preserving interactions across the Telos network.
Built on Secure Industry Foundations
Telos is leveraging existing, robust cryptographic foundations for its privacy layer. The Telos Privacy Layer inherits the security of the well-known Ethereum Perpetual Powers of Tau ceremony, one of the most closely examined and community-driven multi-party computation (MPC) ceremonies ever completed, with 86 independent contributors. This same setup has already been trusted by established ZK privacy ecosystems, including Railgun. Under MPC rules, only one honest contributor is required for the final output to be secure, giving the Telos Privacy Layer an exceptionally strong starting point. The Telos ceremony extends that security with new contributions from trusted members of the Telos community, engineers, researchers, and independent privacy advocates.
Understanding the Ceremony Process
The Trusted Setup Ceremony follows a strict, sequential process designed to ensure decentralization and security. A participant performs a computation and adds their own entropy. Their output then becomes the input for the next participant. Each new contribution increases the overall security of the final parameters. This design ensures the parameters cannot be reconstructed or exploited by any single entity, now or in the future.
Two-Phase Ceremony Structure
The Telos Privacy Layer ceremony is organized into two main phases to systematically build and verify the necessary cryptographic components:
Phase 1: Powers of Tau
Telos extends the security of the previous Ethereum Perpetual Powers of Tau ceremony by adding additional contributors from the Telos ecosystem. This phase builds upon an already secure foundation.
Phase 2: Circuit Parameter Generation
Participants inject entropy into each of the ZK circuits that will power private accounts, shielded transfers, and delegated deposits on the Telos Privacy Layer. This phase focuses on generating the specific parameters for the privacy features.
Both phases must be completed before the final verification keys are generated and the privacy system is activated on mainnet.
Participation and Requirements
Trusted members of the Telos Foundation and Protofire are already contributing to the ceremony. Telos is also inviting reliable and technically capable participants such as active block producers and long-term community members, along with researchers and privacy advocates, to join the effort. To participate, contributors should have access to:
- •A Linux machine with at least 8 CPU cores
- •8 GB or more RAM
- •150 GB of available storage for ceremony data
- •A clean, isolated environment free from unnecessary background software
- •The ability to follow basic operational security best practices
Researchers, engineers, privacy advocates, or security-focused community members who would like to contribute can reach out via Telegram or email at contact@telos.net.
Future Capabilities Enabled by the Privacy Layer
Once the Trusted Setup Ceremony is complete, Telos plans to activate several key features that will enhance user privacy and network capabilities:
- •Private multi-asset accounts offering users quantum-hardened security.
- •Shielded value transfers, allowing for confidential transactions.
- •High-performance, L1-integrated private computation.
- •A best-in-class privacy wallet experience.
Together, these capabilities are intended to position Telos as one of the most capable and forward-looking networks in the industry, designed for mass adoption, developer accessibility, and long-term security.
The ceremony is now underway, and Telos thanks all contributors helping to secure the future of private crypto on the network.
About Telos
Telos is an EVM-compatible Layer 1 blockchain built for privacy, performance, scalability, and real-world usability. With sub-second finality, MEV resistance, and a deflationary token model, Telos powers applications across DeFi, gaming, and enterprise.