Paper 2025/1902 Original: eprint.iacr.org/2025/1902 ↗

Multi-Party Functional Encryption (MPFE): A tool in the distributed and decentralized world

Abstract

Functional Encryption (FE) is a concept that generalizes public-key encryption, allowing a party that owns a private key to find a function of the plaintext (instead of the plaintext itself). Multi-Party Functional Encryption (MPFE) generalizes this concept and adapts it to multi-party settings, allowing for decentralization in both the ciphertexts—which might originate from multiple sources—and the keys—thereby eliminating the necessity of a central authority and avoiding the introduction of a single point of trust and failure. The current paper presents a substantial foundation of MPFE to the non-specialist reader. It provides definitions, classifications, and discusses properties of MPFE and its relation with other cryptographic concepts. The potential applicability of MPFE, which covers multiple domains and use cases, is discussed. The paper investigates the real-world adoption of MPFE, including its presence in technical specifications or its availability in open-source libraries. Finally, the current study discusses challenges and therefore opens up new research directions.