The Shield trusted setup
Before the Shield can guard real money on mainnet, its proving key needs randomness that no one knows in full. Each contributor mixes in a secret only their browser ever sees, then destroys it by closing the tab. If even one contributor in the whole chain was honest, the key is secure forever — against everyone, including us.
Expected around October 7 · reading the chain…. The hash of block 27,740,000 is the random beacon that seals the final key, announced here in advance so nobody can choose it.
The Shield running on the test network today uses a development key that is deliberately, openly insecure, which is exactly why it has not touched mainnet. This ceremony produces the real one. Everything is public: the starting key is a pure function of the published circuit and the Hermez Powers of Tau (54 independent contributions), every intermediate key can be downloaded and verified below, and the final key ships only after the whole chain re verifies from scratch and the circuit audit lands.
Every contribution, in order. Each key is downloadable and independently verifiable with snarkjs against the published circuit and Powers of Tau. Contribution 0 is the deterministic start anyone can rebuild, and the whole chain re verifies end to end before the final key is used anywhere.
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The contribution window closes at PulseChain block 27,740,000, expected around October 7. The chain is then re verified end to end and finalized with the hash of that block, a random beacon announced in advance that nobody can predict or control, and the resulting verifier is what deploys to mainnet with the Shield. The full transcript, every key, and the verification commands stay published permanently.