Design

The Learn section describes what Frost does. This section explains why — the constraints that forced each choice and what each one costs.

Almost every distinctive property of the chain traces back to one fact: a post-quantum signature is roughly fifty times larger than an ECDSA signature and cannot be recovered from. That single change ripples through the account model, the transaction format, the gas schedule, the consensus layer, and the storage strategy.

Keys in accounts, not a registryWhy the public key lives in the user's own contract, and why no address-to-key registry is needed.

Choosing ML-DSAWhy a lattice signature scheme, why FIPS 204, and why ML-DSA-65 for the default account.

Pricing the verifiersHow the precompile gas costs were derived, and why they are consensus-critical.

Counterfactual onboardingWhy an account can receive funds before it exists, and pays for its own deployment.

Consensus and the Engine APIWhy a DAG consensus layer drives the execution layer through a forced-transaction interface.

Two-tier consensus keysWhy block signatures and checkpoint roots use different schemes with different lifetimes.

Witness segregationWhy signature bytes are committed separately from the transactions that carry them.

Fee-blind orderingWhy ordering is decided without reference to fees, and what that does and does not eliminate.

A note on scope

These pages describe the system as built and deployed. Where a design has a cost, a limit, or a residual risk, it is stated — a design document that only lists benefits is marketing.