Definition ∞ Randomness commitment is a cryptographic protocol that allows a party to commit to a random value without revealing it, later proving its randomness and the committed value. This scheme is used to establish a source of publicly verifiable randomness in decentralized systems, preventing participants from manipulating outcomes. It involves a two-phase process where a value is committed, then later revealed and verified against the commitment. This ensures fairness and unpredictability in applications like lotteries, gaming, or validator selection on blockchains.
Context ∞ Randomness commitment is a critical component for security and fairness in many decentralized applications, especially those requiring unpredictable outcomes. News often covers advancements in verifiable random functions (VRFs) and other cryptographic methods to generate secure on-chain randomness. A key discussion involves preventing malicious actors from predicting or influencing the random output. Continuous research focuses on creating more efficient and robust randomness commitment schemes for blockchain protocols.
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