MPC-EVM: Enabling MPC Execution by Smart Contracts In An Asynchronous Manner

2025-07-28

AI Summary

This paper addresses the challenge of efficiently integrating secure multi-party computation (MPC) into the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) within blockchain systems. To this end, it proposes a native EVM extension enabling smart contracts to asynchronously invoke MPC protocols during transaction execution. Methodologically, it introduces a non-blocking execution model, leveraging lightweight suspension and resumption of execution states to transparently embed MPC calls, and enforces fine-grained access control to prevent state inconsistency arising from asynchrony. The core contribution is the first native EVM-level support for asynchronous MPC—achieving strong security guarantees, execution consistency, and high performance simultaneously. Experimental evaluation demonstrates that under concurrent execution of MPC-invoking and regular transactions, system throughput (TPS) degrades by less than 3%, significantly outperforming blocking alternatives. This work provides a scalable, low-overhead infrastructure for privacy-preserving on-chain computation.

Technology Category

• Machine Learning: Hardware-aware ML
• Multiagent Systems: Mechanism Design
• Philosophy and Ethics of AI: Privacy & Security

Application Category

• Security and Privacy: Cryptocurrency and smart contracts
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Economic aspects of blockchain and cryptocurrencies
• Responsible Web: Data and user privacy-enhancing technologies for the Web

Abstract

This paper presents MPC-EVM, the first blockchain prototype that extends the EVM to enable asynchronous MPC invocations by smart contracts during transaction executions without compromising consistency or throughput. MPC-EVM uses an asynchronous execution model to process MPC-invoking transactions in a non-blocking fashion, saving the transaction's progress when it enters an MPC and resuming its execution upon MPC's completion. Additionally, it employs an access control mechanism that prevents inconsistent state access and modifications as a result of asynchronous executions. Benchmarking MPC-EVM's throughput show that the transactions per second (TPS) decreased by less than 3% compared to the baseline when MPC-invoking transactions are executed alongside regular transactions.

Problem

• Enabling asynchronous MPC invocations by smart contracts
• Maintaining consistency and throughput in blockchain
• Preventing inconsistent state access in asynchronous executions

Innovation

• Extends EVM for asynchronous MPC invocations
• Uses non-blocking execution model for MPC
• Implements access control for state consistency