Multi-Party Computation (MPC) is the cryptographic backbone of NEAR Protocol’s biggest bet – making blockchains invisible to normal users. Through a technology called Chain Signatures, a single NEAR account can control assets on Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and dozens of other chains. No bridges. No multiple wallets. No headaches. Here’s how it works, what’s live today, and where it’s going.
What is MPC in Simple Terms?
You know those bank vaults in movies where two people each have a key, and they both have to turn them simultaneously to open the door? MPC is like that, but upgraded. Imagine a vault with 9 keyholes. Each keyhole belongs to a different person, and each person has a unique key that they never let anyone copy or even see. To open the vault, you don’t need all 9 — any 7 will do. Each person walks up to their keyhole, turns their key, and walks away. They never see each other’s keys. They don’t even need to be in the same room — they just need to turn their key at roughly the same time. When 7 or more keys turn, the vault opens. If only 6 turn — nothing happens. If someone steals one key — useless without six more. Now here’s the MPC twist: the vault doesn’t just open — it produces something. Each key turn generates a fragment. Seven fragments combine into a complete digital signature that can move Bitcoin, trade on Ethereum, or sign a transaction on any blockchain. The signature is real and valid, but no single key could have created it alone, and the “master key” – the full private key – was never assembled. It doesn’t exist anywhere as a whole thing. That’s how NEAR’s MPC network works. Nine nodes, each with a secret key share. Seven participate, the signature comes out, the transaction goes through. Two nodes offline? No problem. One node hacked? Attacker has one piece of nothing.
NEAR’s MPC network currently runs 9 independent nodes operated by organizations including Pagoda, Luganodes, InfStones, Black Sand Technologies, and Aurora, with a target of scaling to 21 nodes. The system uses a protocol called cait-sith for threshold signatures. To keep signing fast, each node continuously pre-generates up to a million cryptographic building blocks called Beaver triples, which get combined into “presignatures.” When an actual signing request arrives, it only takes one round of communication between nodes to produce a final signature. The MPC node software is open-source (MIT license on GitHub) and actively maintained by NEAR One and HOT Labs.
Chain Signatures: One Account, Every Blockchain
NEAR’s headline MPC product is Chain Signatures. Think of it as a universal remote for blockchains. You have a single NEAR account — say, alice.near. Through deterministic key derivation, that one account can generate a unique address on Bitcoin, another on Ethereum, another on Solana. When Alice wants to send Bitcoin, her NEAR account asks the MPC network to co-sign the transaction. The nodes each compute their piece, combine them, and produce a valid Bitcoin signature. Alice broadcasts it to the Bitcoin network. Done. Real BTC moved, no bridge required, no wrapped tokens. Why does this matter? Traditional cross-chain bridges – which lock tokens on one chain and create copies on another — have been responsible for some of crypto’s worst hacks. Chain Signatures sidestep this entirely by letting NEAR accounts directly control addresses on other blockchains. Chain Signatures launched on mainnet in August 2024 with ECDSA support (Bitcoin, Ethereum, all EVM chains). EdDSA support followed, unlocking Solana, TON, Stellar, Sui, and Aptos. The system now covers virtually every major blockchain.
NEAR Intents: Say What You Want, Not How to Get It
If Chain Signatures provide the signing muscle, NEAR Intents provide the brain. Instead of manually specifying every step of a swap (“swap token A for token B on DEX C, bridge to chain D…”), users express a desired outcome: “I want to swap 100 USDC on Polygon for NEAR at the best rate.” That intent gets broadcast to solvers – professional market makers who compete to fulfill it. Settlement happens on NEAR in about 1.2 seconds at roughly $0.01, with Chain Signatures handling any cross-chain signing. NEAR Intents has crossed $10 billion in all-time volume, supporting over 15.7 million swaps across 20+ blockchains and 125+ digital assets. Integrations include Bitget Wallet, Ledger, Trust Wallet, THORSwap, and KyberSwap.
HOT Protocol: MPC Wallets for 30 Million Telegram Users
One of the most impressive real-world MPC deployments on NEAR is HOT Protocol (by HOT Labs / HOT DAO). HOT Wallet launched as a Telegram mini-app and grew to over 30 million wallets. It was the #1 ranked DApp by unique active users on DappRadar in 2024. HOT runs its own MPC infrastructure where private keys are split across independent validator nodes hosted by EverStake, NEAR Protocol, Aurora. No single validator knows the full wallet address or the complete transaction being signed. Keys are protected inside Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) — hardware enclaves that even server operators can’t peek into. The system has been audited by Hacken. HOT also integrates tightly with the broader NEAR stack – HOT Bridge is one of the named routes within NEAR Intents, and the protocol recently adopted the FROST MPC protocol for EdDSA signatures, adding Solana and TON wallet support.
OmniBridge and Outlayer
OmniBridge is NEAR’s universal cross-chain bridge, replacing the older Ethereum-only Rainbow Bridge. Powered by Chain Signatures’ MPC service, it supports Ethereum, Solana, Arbitrum, Base, and Bitcoin. Outlayer (by FASTNEAR) takes a different approach — instead of MPC, it uses Intel TDX Trusted Execution Environments for verifiable off-chain computation. Think AI inference, verifiable randomness, or secure API calls — all callable from NEAR smart contracts. While not MPC per se, it shares the same philosophy: keep security on-chain, scale computation off-chain.
House of Stake: Who Governs MPC Infrastructure?
All this infrastructure needs governance, and that’s where House of Stake comes in. Launched in 2025, it uses vote-escrowed NEAR tokens (veNEAR) to give long-term stakeholders decision-making power. The governance body has already passed binding proposals including HSP-002 (Validator Support Program) and HSP-003 (veNEAR Holder Rewards). HSP-007 – authored by Sal Ternullo (SVRN) and Kendall Cole (Proximity Labs) — is currently in review. It proposes transitioning MPC node funding from discretionary grants to protocol emissions governed by House of Stake. The specifics: up to 21 MPC nodes funded at 4,600 NEAR per node per month, with payments gated by strict SLA requirements (99% uptime or penalties kick in). The proposal also introduces floor and cap mechanics on NEAR price ($1.50–$3.00) to protect both operators and the protocol. It’s a significant step — the community would be directly governing the funding of core cryptographic infrastructure through on-chain voting.
What’s Next
NEAR’s MPC infrastructure is evolving on several fronts. HSP-007 charts the path to 21 MPC nodes (up from 9 today), with all nodes required to run on Intel TDX-enabled hardware inside Trusted Execution Environments. The system is also transitioning from a proof-of-authority model toward a permissionless network with staking requirements and slashing conditions, secured jointly by NEAR stakers and EigenLayer ETH restakers. The proposal also hints at broader applications — MPC nodes are extensible to privacy use cases on the 2026 NEAR roadmap. AI agents are entering the picture too – teams are building applications where autonomous agents use NEAR Intents and Chain Signatures to transact across chains. The underlying vision hasn’t changed since NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin first articulated it: blockchains should be invisible. Users shouldn’t know or care which chain their assets are on. MPC is the cryptographic thread running through all of it – Chain Signatures, Intents, HOT Wallet, OmniBridge – turning fragmented blockchains into one seamless experience.
Updated: February 6, 2026
