what's Nihilium?

Nihilium is a chain-agnostic cryptographic protocol for decentralized, censorship-resistant key recovery—the Web3 equivalent of “forgot my password.” It enables self-sovereign recovery of secrets (keys, files, credentials) without trusted third parties. Core is the “sealed package”: a public key encrypts the secret, with the private key distributed across processors who never see it. Unsealing requires the user to prove conditions (e.g., ZKEmail, time-lock, ownership) via zero-knowledge proofs; processors are bound by slashable stakes to execute honestly or face penalties. The architecture is off-chain for scalability: clients generate proofs, processors validate via bytecode, blockchain enforces disputes. It combines ZK proofs, homomorphic encryption, and game-theoretic incentives for security, observability, and liveness. Modular conditions support diverse apps like wallets and privacy tools, with prepaid sealing and free unsealing to prevent extortion.

Nihilium has two operational test implementations for secure file delivery and password recovery.