Definition ∞ Decoupled commitment refers to a cryptographic technique where a party commits to a piece of data without immediately revealing its content, and this commitment can be independently verified later. The act of making the commitment is separated from the act of revealing the data. This allows for privacy and flexibility in multi-party computations. It maintains data integrity without premature disclosure.
Context ∞ In digital assets, decoupled commitment is relevant for privacy-enhancing technologies and zero-knowledge proofs, where parties need to agree on certain conditions without exposing underlying sensitive information. News may cover its use in confidential transactions or verifiable computation protocols designed to improve blockchain privacy and scalability. A critical future development involves the broader adoption of such cryptographic primitives to enable more complex and private interactions within decentralized finance and other blockchain applications.