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FROST
Flexible Round-Optimized Schnorr Threshold Signatures, threshold Schnorr signatures
A threshold Schnorr signature scheme that lets a group produce one standard signature without giving one party the full private key.
FROST stands for Flexible Round-Optimized Schnorr Threshold Signatures. It is a threshold signing scheme for Schnorr keys. A secret key is split into shares, and a quorum of participants can cooperate to produce one valid signature without reconstructing the full key in one place.
That matters anywhere one signer is a liability. A t-of-n policy can distribute trust across people, devices, or servers while still tolerating some offline or compromised participants. To outside verifiers, the result still looks like a normal Schnorr signature.
In the Bitcoin ecosystem, FROST is relevant to wallet security, custody, federated systems, and protocols that need threshold signing without exposing a multisig policy on chain. OpenSats-funded work in this area includes Frostr, a nostr threshold signing protocol built on FROST. FROST also fits naturally alongside Taproot, which brought Schnorr signatures to Bitcoin.