Key Ceremony

How It Works

A key ceremony treats key generation as a critical security event rather than a casual setup step. The process typically begins with preparing a clean, air-gapped environment — a room with no cameras, no phones, and no network-connected devices. Participants follow a written protocol step by step, often with witnesses present to verify each action is performed correctly.

Use a documented hardware-wallet flow that mixes independent device randomness with private physical input such as fair dice rolls or coin flips. Do not invent seed words or use an online generator. Keep every secret input away from people and cameras, and never record the complete entropy sequence. Record only the resulting seed on its offline backup.

A dice-only workflow is an advanced alternative, not the same as adding dice to device entropy. If the dice are the only source, the sequence must be long enough for the chosen seed length and the conversion must be independently verified offline.

For multisig setups, the ceremony generates each key independently, often at different locations and times, so that no single session produces enough keys to compromise the quorum. Extended public keys (xpubs) are exported to set up the multisig coordination, while private keys remain isolated. The ceremony is documented with enough detail to reproduce the setup for verification, but without recording any secret material. For institutional or high-value personal holdings, this level of rigor is not paranoia — it is prudent engineering.

Key Points

• Formal, documented process for generating keys under controlled, secure conditions
• Mix independent device entropy with private physical input you control
• Air-gapped environment with no cameras, phones, or network-connected devices
• Record the resulting seed backup, not the complete user-entropy sequence
• For multisig, each key is generated independently to prevent single-session compromise