What is Key Management?
Key management encompasses the practices and systems for securely generating, storing, distributing, rotating, and revoking cryptographic keys — the foundation of all blockchain wallet security.
WHY IT MATTERS
The security of every blockchain wallet ultimately rests on key management. It doesn't matter how sophisticated your spending controls are if the private key is stored in a .env file on a compromised server. Key management is the bedrock.
For agent wallets, key management faces unique challenges. The key must be accessible to software (for programmatic signing) but protected from attackers, other agents, and even the agent's own LLM (which could be manipulated through prompt injection to exfiltrate key material).
Modern approaches include HSMs (Hardware Security Modules), TEEs (Trusted Execution Environments), MPC key management services (Turnkey, Fireblocks), and cloud KMS solutions (AWS KMS, GCP Cloud HSM). Each offers different tradeoffs in security, latency, cost, and operational complexity.
HOW POLICYLAYER USES THIS
PolicyLayer separates key management from spending control. You handle key security with your preferred solution (MPC, HSM, cloud KMS). PolicyLayer handles what gets signed — ensuring transactions comply with policies regardless of how keys are managed.