Liquefaction
Privately Liquefying Blockchain Assets
Building on Liquefaction
Abstract
Inherent in the world of cryptocurrency systems and their security models is the notion that private keys—and thus assets—are controlled by individuals or individual entities.
We present Liquefaction, a wallet platform that demonstrates the dangerous fragility of this foundational assumption by systemically breaking it. Liquefaction uses trusted execution environments (TEEs) to encumber private keys, i.e., attach rich, multi-user policies to their use.
Our work prompts a wholesale rethinking of existing models and enforcement of key and asset ownership in the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
Key Research Findings
Key encumbrance
Liquefaction uses TEEs to attach rich, stateful policies to a wallet’s private key, letting you rent, share or pool crypto credentials and balances entirely off-chain, with zero on-chain footprint.
Security Implications
By breaking the “one key = one owner” model, Liquefaction exposes deep vulnerabilities across the ecosystem such as the trading of locked/vested tokens, covert DAO vote-buying, subverted quadratic voting, stealth wash-trading...
New markets
Liquefaction unlocks privacy-preserving DAOs, dusting-attack shields, and novel financial instruments—while “Complete Knowledge” proofs give apps a simple, practical way to opt back in to single-owner security.
Open Source Codebase
Explore our complete open-source implementation, and check out some examples of how it can be used to implement your own access control policies:
View Implementation on GitHub →