Initial ceremony DApp
During the initial ceremony a master of ceremony creates a set of keys for each validator. He/She distributes them to validators one by one. Before each distribution of keys, he/she sends a transaction to a smart contract with a list of validators. That smart contract is used by consensus algorithm to determine if a validator has rights to participate in consensus and create blocks. The validator's smart contracts are used by other DApps, e.g. Governance DApp and Payout DApp.
A validator generates three keys in the Initial Ceremony DApp:
mining key, required to participate in consensus and create blocks.
voting key, required to create ballots and vote on ballots.
payout key, not required. Used in Payout DApp to send daily mined coins from the mining key to the payout key. If a mining node should be compromised, an attacker will get daily earnings or less.
All keys are generated on the client side and not transmitted over the Internet without a validator's permission and willingness. When keys are generated, the validator stores them on secure local storage, e.g. saves them to a hardware wallet and the password to a password manager. The validator signs a transaction to the validator's contract with the initial key, provided by the master of ceremony.
Initial ceremony is a required procedure to start a new network based on POA Network's ideas of independent validators.
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