Key Takeaways

• Chia proof of control lets farmers prove they own storage space using cryptographic proofs — no fund transfers required.
• Three layers work together: Proof of Space (storage commitment), Verifiable Delay Functions (time integrity), and private key signatures (authorization).
• Plot NFTs let farmers join or switch pools without re-plotting, while keeping full ownership of their storage and rewards.
• Enterprise custody vaults use multisig + timelocks + clawback to guard large holdings without relying on a third-party custodian.
• Every action — withdrawal, rekey, clawback — leaves an immutable on-chain audit trail that anyone can verify.

Chia proof of control is a cryptographic system that lets farmers prove exclusive ownership of storage space — and lets organizations prove asset custody — without moving a single coin or exposing a private key. It combines Proof of Space, Verifiable Delay Functions, and smart contract singletons to create a public, tamper-proof audit trail. That trail answers the hardest question in custody: “Do you actually control this?” — with math, not trust.¹

What Chia Proof of Control Actually Means

In traditional finance, proving you control an asset usually means moving it — sending a test transaction, signing a form, or showing a statement. That exposes you to risk and creates friction. Chia takes a different approach. Instead of moving funds to prove control, farmers prove that their hard drives contain specific cryptographic data and that only they can sign with the key that unlocks it.

This matters because proof replaces trust as the verification mechanism. Auditors, pool operators, and counterparties don’t have to take your word for it — the blockchain records everything. For crypto farmers, this means you never have to hand over your keys or transfer funds to demonstrate you’re farming legitimately. For enterprises, it means custody arrangements can be verified publicly without revealing sensitive internal details.

Unlike Bitcoin’s energy-intensive proof of work or Ethereum’s capital-intensive proof of stake, Chia’s approach is anchored in physical storage. Farmers — Chia’s equivalent of miners — allocate hard drive space, fill it with plots, and respond to network challenges. Successfully responding proves they control that space at that exact moment. No funds move. No keys are revealed. The proof speaks for itself.²

The Three-Layer Security Model

Chia proof of control rests on three interlocking layers. First, Proof of Space requires farmers to allocate real disk space — a minimum of 101.4 GiB for a standard k32 plot — and fill it with cryptographic hashes during a one-time plotting process. This plotting can take anywhere from minutes on high-end hardware to twelve or more hours on a slower machine, depending on CPU and RAM. Once done, the plot file sits on disk ready to respond to challenges.³

Second, Verifiable Delay Functions (VDFs) add a time dimension that no attacker can shortcut. Timelords — specialized nodes running VDF computations — broadcast signage point proofs roughly every nine seconds, creating deterministic randomness that determines which plots win blocks. Because VDFs are inherently sequential, parallel computing power can’t speed them up. This means rewriting blockchain history would take as many real wall-clock years as the chain took to build. Bram Cohen, Chia Network’s founder, has explained that this sequential property is what makes grinding attacks computationally futile for an adversary attempting to rewrite years of history.⁴

Third, private key ownership ties physical storage to digital identity. Every plot is mathematically linked to a unique private key. Only the holder of that key can sign a block when a valid proof is found. Copying someone’s plot files gets you nothing — without the matching key, you can’t claim rewards. This binding ensures that proving you have the storage also proves you have the authority.⁵

Plot NFTs: Smart Contracts That Keep Farmers in Control

Before the pooling protocol launched in 2021, Chia farmers who wanted steady income had a problem: to join a pool, you had to re-plot everything if you ever wanted to leave. Plot NFTs solved this completely. A Plot NFT is a singleton smart contract on the Chia blockchain that the farmer controls. It holds the pool assignment. Change the NFT, change the pool — no re-plotting needed.⁶

Here’s how it works in practice: when a farmer is assigned to a pool, their node constantly sends partial proofs — valid proofs that don’t meet the full blockchain difficulty threshold — to the pool server. These “partials” let the pool track how much space each farmer contributes. Each k32 plot earns around ten points per day regardless of the pool’s difficulty setting, giving pools a fair and consistent way to calculate each farmer’s share of rewards.⁷

What’s critical here is what pools cannot do. A pool server has no authority over a farmer’s Plot NFT. It cannot steal funds, prevent a farmer from leaving, or force any action. The smart contract enforces a short waiting period when a farmer leaves a pool — this stops a bad actor from submitting partials to collect pool income while secretly holding a winning block for solo payout. Once that waiting period passes, the farmer is free. The audit trail of every pool action is recorded on-chain.⁸

Proving Space Without Revealing What’s in It

When responding to a network challenge, farmers never transmit the actual contents of their plot files. They transmit compact cryptographic proofs — collections of 64 x-values that satisfy a specific mathematical relationship — that verifiers can check quickly using public information. The underlying data stays on disk, private and untouched.⁹

For enterprise or compliance contexts, this property is powerful. A company can demonstrate it has committed specific storage resources to the network — satisfying an audit requirement — without exposing internal storage architecture, server locations, or data contents. The proof is permanent and publicly verifiable on Chia’s blockchain. No inspector needs to visit a data center.

Enterprise Custody: Multisig Vaults and Timelocked Audit Trails

Proof of control scales from individual farmers all the way to enterprise treasury management. Chia’s custody tool enables multisig vaults, withdrawal timelocks, and rekeying — all on-chain, all publicly auditable. The result is a custody arrangement where every action is recorded, every authorization is verifiable, and no single person can drain funds unilaterally.¹⁰

The custody singleton works like this: organizations configure a set of signing keys (say, five total) and a threshold required for any action (say, three). No withdrawal can begin until three of those five keys sign off. Before funds actually move, there is a mandatory waiting period — the withdrawal timelock — after which a “drop coin” is created. This drop coin holds the outgoing funds in permissionless escrow for an additional clawback period. During that window, the same threshold of signers can cancel the withdrawal and return everything to the vault. Only after the clawback period expires without intervention can the withdrawal be completed.¹¹

Rekeying — replacing the signing keys — is just as controlled. A standard rekey requires the same m-of-n threshold and follows its own timelock and clawback sequence. A “slow rekey” is available if fewer than the full threshold of keys are available — it imposes additional time penalties to compensate for the reduced security of the signing set. In every case, the entire rekey process is publicly recorded on-chain. Funds never move during a rekey. Control simply transfers to a new set of keys.¹²

Hardware Security Modules and Air-Gapped Signing

For maximum security, Chia’s custody infrastructure pairs the software vault with Hardware Security Modules — physically isolated computers with no network connectivity and no antennas on their motherboards, surrounded by Faraday cages. Private keys never leave the HSM’s secure element. Instead, a human physically enters the vault, scans a QR code representing the transaction, and the HSM generates a signature that can be safely removed and broadcast. If any signed transaction is modified after signing, it becomes automatically invalid.¹³

Chia Network Inc. uses exactly this architecture to secure its 21 million XCH prefarm — the company’s entire pre-allocated supply. The prefarm is split across four custody wallets (two in North America, two in Europe), each using a 3-of-5 multisig configuration with a 30-day withdrawal timelock and a 90-day payment clawback period. Because these values are baked into the singleton’s permanent layer at creation, they can never be changed — not even by Chia Network Inc. itself. The entire custody arrangement is publicly verifiable on Chia’s blockchain without requiring any trust in off-chain claims.¹⁴

Why the Audit Trail Matters for Chia Proof of Control

Every action taken on a Chia custody singleton — initiating a withdrawal, executing a clawback, beginning a rekey, completing a rekey — is recorded on-chain as a coin spend. The custody tool’s audit command can export the full history as a CSV, showing the exact time, action type, amounts, and recipient addresses for every event since the wallet’s creation. Critically, even cancelled actions appear in the log — a clawback is recorded alongside the withdrawal it stopped.¹⁵

This is the heart of proving control without moving funds. You don’t demonstrate authority by transferring assets. You demonstrate it by showing the on-chain record: who signed, when, what threshold was met, what happened next. For regulators, investors, or counterparties who need to verify that a treasury is being managed responsibly, that record is sufficient. No third-party custodian needs to vouch for you.

For Chia farming operations, the equivalent audit trail is the pool protocol. Every partial proof submitted by a farmer is timestamped and logged by the pool. Combined with the Plot NFT’s on-chain singleton status, any observer can verify exactly how much space a farming operation committed and for how long. This approach to distributed storage verification is one reason Chia’s architecture is increasingly relevant beyond farming — extending into verifiable data storage, DePIN infrastructure, and enterprise proof-of-reserve applications. To understand the network-level context for these capabilities, including upcoming changes in the Proof of Space 2.0 hard fork, see our guide to Chia’s network evolution and the Proof of Space hard fork.

Security Threats and Why They Fail Against Chia Proof of Control

Understanding the attacks that don’t work helps explain why Chia’s design is so durable. Grinding attacks — where an adversary tries to simulate alternate blockchain histories to win more blocks — face an insurmountable wall: VDFs are sequential. More processors don’t help. To rewrite ten years of Chia history would require ten real-world years of computation, running continuously. No parallel shortcut exists.

Double-farming attacks on pool operators — where a dishonest farmer collects pool income until they win a block, then claims the full block reward solo — are blocked by the Plot NFT’s enforced exit delay. The smart contract cannot be bypassed. The waiting period is not a policy; it is code.

Key theft from custody vaults is addressed through the multisig threshold and the slow rekey. If one of five keys is compromised, the attacker cannot act alone — they still need two more signatures. If the key holder discovers the breach, they can initiate a rekey using the remaining legitimate keys. Even during a slow rekey with minimal signers, the time penalty gives the organization a window to detect and respond. There is no single point of failure in a correctly configured Chia custody arrangement.¹⁶

Conclusion: Control Is Proven, Not Claimed

Chia proof of control changes the question from “do you trust them?” to “can the math prove it?” For individual farmers, that means Plot NFTs that record every pool assignment change immutably, private keys that bind physical disk space to digital identity, and partial proofs that provide a continuous audit trail of farming activity. For enterprises, it means custody vaults with on-chain records of every authorization, every withdrawal attempt, and every clawback — visible to anyone, falsifiable by no one. The approach works at every scale, from a hobbyist with a few hard drives to a publicly listed company securing hundreds of millions of dollars in reserves. Start by exploring the custody tool documentation or setting up your first Plot NFT — the tools exist today, and the audit trail begins the moment you do.

Chia Proof of Control FAQs

What is Chia proof of control and how does it differ from proof of stake?

Chia proof of control is a cryptographic system where farmers prove exclusive ownership of storage space — and organizations prove asset custody — through math, not fund transfers. Unlike proof of stake, which requires locking up cryptocurrency as collateral and carries slashing risk, Chia proof of control is backed by physical hard drive space and requires no capital at stake.

How does Chia proof of control create an audit trail without moving funds?

Every action on a Chia custody singleton — withdrawal initiations, clawbacks, rekeys — is recorded as a coin spend on the blockchain. The custody tool can export the full history as a CSV. For farming, partial proofs submitted to pools create a timestamped log of storage commitment. Neither process requires transferring funds to prove anything.

Can a pool steal my XCH if I use a Plot NFT?

No. The Plot NFT is a smart contract that you control through your private key. A pool server can receive partial proofs and distribute rewards, but it has no authority to access your wallet or force actions on your Plot NFT. You can switch or leave a pool at any time after the exit waiting period.

What happens to the audit trail if I clawback a Chia custody withdrawal?

The clawback is recorded on-chain just like the original withdrawal initiation. Both events appear in the custody audit log with timestamps and the signing keys involved. The result is a complete, immutable history — including the fact that a withdrawal was started and then cancelled — that any observer can verify.

How many keys are required to move funds from Chia’s prefarm custody?

Chia Network Inc.’s prefarm cold wallets require 3 of 5 private keys to authorize any withdrawal. A 30-day withdrawal timelock must be satisfied first, and funds then sit in escrow for 90 days during which clawback is possible. These parameters are permanently set in the custody singleton’s on-chain code and cannot be changed.

Chia Proof of Control Citations

1. Chia Network. “Pool Farming.” Chia Documentation. https://docs.chia.net/reference-client/farming/pool-farming/
2. Chia Network. “Proof of Space.” Chia Documentation. https://docs.chia.net/chia-blockchain/consensus/proof-of-space-1.0/
3. Chia Network. “Proof of Space — Plotting.” Chia Documentation. https://docs.chia.net/chia-blockchain/consensus/proof-of-space-1.0/
4. Chia Network. “Proof of Time (VDFs).” Chia Documentation. https://docs.chia.net/chia-blockchain/consensus/proof-of-time/
5. Chia Network. “Pooling User Guide.” GitHub Wiki. https://github.com/Chia-Network/chia-blockchain/wiki/Pooling-User-Guide
6. Chialisp. “Pooling.” https://chialisp.com/pooling/
7. Chia Network. “Pool Farming — Points.” Chia Documentation. https://docs.chia.net/reference-client/farming/pool-farming/
8. Chia Network. “Pool Protocol.” Chia Documentation. https://docs.chia.net/pool-protocol/
9. Chia Network. “Chiapos — Proof of Space Library.” GitHub. https://github.com/Chia-Network/chiapos
10. Chia Network. “Custody Tool Description.” Chia Documentation. https://docs.chia.net/guides/custody-tool-description/
11. Chia Network. “Custody Tool Description — Withdrawal.” Chia Documentation. https://docs.chia.net/guides/custody-tool-description/
12. Chia Network. “Custody Tool Description — Rekey.” Chia Documentation. https://docs.chia.net/guides/custody-tool-description/
13. Chia Network. “A New Home for the Prefarm.” Chia Blog. https://www.chia.net/2022/10/29/a-new-home-for-the-prefarm/
14. Chia Network. “A New Home for the Prefarm — Prefarm Settings.” Chia Blog. https://www.chia.net/2022/10/29/a-new-home-for-the-prefarm/
15. Chia Network. “Custody Tool CLI — audit command.” Chia Documentation. https://docs.chia.net/reference-client/cli-reference/custody-tool-cli/
16. Chia Network. “Custody Tool User Guide.” Chia Documentation. https://docs.chia.net/guides/custody-tool-user-guide/

Audit Trails: Proving Chia Proof of Control Without Moving Funds

Key Takeaways

• Chia proof of control lets farmers prove they own storage space using cryptographic proofs — no fund transfers required.
• Three layers work together: Proof of Space (storage commitment), Verifiable Delay Functions (time integrity), and private key signatures (authorization).
• Plot NFTs let farmers join or switch pools without re-plotting, while keeping full ownership of their storage and rewards.
• Enterprise custody vaults use multisig + timelocks + clawback to guard large holdings without relying on a third-party custodian.
• Every action — withdrawal, rekey, clawback — leaves an immutable on-chain audit trail that anyone can verify.

Chia proof of control is a cryptographic system that lets farmers prove exclusive ownership of storage space — and lets organizations prove asset custody — without moving a single coin or exposing a private key. It combines Proof of Space, Verifiable Delay Functions, and smart contract singletons to create a public, tamper-proof audit trail. That trail answers the hardest question in custody: “Do you actually control this?” — with math, not trust.¹

What Chia Proof of Control Actually Means

In traditional finance, proving you control an asset usually means moving it — sending a test transaction, signing a form, or showing a statement. That exposes you to risk and creates friction. Chia takes a different approach. Instead of moving funds to prove control, farmers prove that their hard drives contain specific cryptographic data and that only they can sign with the key that unlocks it.

This matters because proof replaces trust as the verification mechanism. Auditors, pool operators, and counterparties don’t have to take your word for it — the blockchain records everything. For crypto farmers, this means you never have to hand over your keys or transfer funds to demonstrate you’re farming legitimately. For enterprises, it means custody arrangements can be verified publicly without revealing sensitive internal details.

Unlike Bitcoin’s energy-intensive proof of work or Ethereum’s capital-intensive proof of stake, Chia’s approach is anchored in physical storage. Farmers — Chia’s equivalent of miners — allocate hard drive space, fill it with plots, and respond to network challenges. Successfully responding proves they control that space at that exact moment. No funds move. No keys are revealed. The proof speaks for itself.²

The Three-Layer Security Model

Chia proof of control rests on three interlocking layers. First, Proof of Space requires farmers to allocate real disk space — a minimum of 101.4 GiB for a standard k32 plot — and fill it with cryptographic hashes during a one-time plotting process. This plotting can take anywhere from minutes on high-end hardware to twelve or more hours on a slower machine, depending on CPU and RAM. Once done, the plot file sits on disk ready to respond to challenges.³

Second, Verifiable Delay Functions (VDFs) add a time dimension that no attacker can shortcut. Timelords — specialized nodes running VDF computations — broadcast signage point proofs roughly every nine seconds, creating deterministic randomness that determines which plots win blocks. Because VDFs are inherently sequential, parallel computing power can’t speed them up. This means rewriting blockchain history would take as many real wall-clock years as the chain took to build. Bram Cohen, Chia Network’s founder, has explained that this sequential property is what makes grinding attacks computationally futile for an adversary attempting to rewrite years of history.⁴

Third, private key ownership ties physical storage to digital identity. Every plot is mathematically linked to a unique private key. Only the holder of that key can sign a block when a valid proof is found. Copying someone’s plot files gets you nothing — without the matching key, you can’t claim rewards. This binding ensures that proving you have the storage also proves you have the authority.⁵

Plot NFTs: Smart Contracts That Keep Farmers in Control

Before the pooling protocol launched in 2021, Chia farmers who wanted steady income had a problem: to join a pool, you had to re-plot everything if you ever wanted to leave. Plot NFTs solved this completely. A Plot NFT is a singleton smart contract on the Chia blockchain that the farmer controls. It holds the pool assignment. Change the NFT, change the pool — no re-plotting needed.⁶

Here’s how it works in practice: when a farmer is assigned to a pool, their node constantly sends partial proofs — valid proofs that don’t meet the full blockchain difficulty threshold — to the pool server. These “partials” let the pool track how much space each farmer contributes. Each k32 plot earns around ten points per day regardless of the pool’s difficulty setting, giving pools a fair and consistent way to calculate each farmer’s share of rewards.⁷

What’s critical here is what pools cannot do. A pool server has no authority over a farmer’s Plot NFT. It cannot steal funds, prevent a farmer from leaving, or force any action. The smart contract enforces a short waiting period when a farmer leaves a pool — this stops a bad actor from submitting partials to collect pool income while secretly holding a winning block for solo payout. Once that waiting period passes, the farmer is free. The audit trail of every pool action is recorded on-chain.⁸

Proving Space Without Revealing What’s in It

When responding to a network challenge, farmers never transmit the actual contents of their plot files. They transmit compact cryptographic proofs — collections of 64 x-values that satisfy a specific mathematical relationship — that verifiers can check quickly using public information. The underlying data stays on disk, private and untouched.⁹

For enterprise or compliance contexts, this property is powerful. A company can demonstrate it has committed specific storage resources to the network — satisfying an audit requirement — without exposing internal storage architecture, server locations, or data contents. The proof is permanent and publicly verifiable on Chia’s blockchain. No inspector needs to visit a data center.

Enterprise Custody: Multisig Vaults and Timelocked Audit Trails

Proof of control scales from individual farmers all the way to enterprise treasury management. Chia’s custody tool enables multisig vaults, withdrawal timelocks, and rekeying — all on-chain, all publicly auditable. The result is a custody arrangement where every action is recorded, every authorization is verifiable, and no single person can drain funds unilaterally.¹⁰

The custody singleton works like this: organizations configure a set of signing keys (say, five total) and a threshold required for any action (say, three). No withdrawal can begin until three of those five keys sign off. Before funds actually move, there is a mandatory waiting period — the withdrawal timelock — after which a “drop coin” is created. This drop coin holds the outgoing funds in permissionless escrow for an additional clawback period. During that window, the same threshold of signers can cancel the withdrawal and return everything to the vault. Only after the clawback period expires without intervention can the withdrawal be completed.¹¹

Rekeying — replacing the signing keys — is just as controlled. A standard rekey requires the same m-of-n threshold and follows its own timelock and clawback sequence. A “slow rekey” is available if fewer than the full threshold of keys are available — it imposes additional time penalties to compensate for the reduced security of the signing set. In every case, the entire rekey process is publicly recorded on-chain. Funds never move during a rekey. Control simply transfers to a new set of keys.¹²

Hardware Security Modules and Air-Gapped Signing

For maximum security, Chia’s custody infrastructure pairs the software vault with Hardware Security Modules — physically isolated computers with no network connectivity and no antennas on their motherboards, surrounded by Faraday cages. Private keys never leave the HSM’s secure element. Instead, a human physically enters the vault, scans a QR code representing the transaction, and the HSM generates a signature that can be safely removed and broadcast. If any signed transaction is modified after signing, it becomes automatically invalid.¹³

Chia Network Inc. uses exactly this architecture to secure its 21 million XCH prefarm — the company’s entire pre-allocated supply. The prefarm is split across four custody wallets (two in North America, two in Europe), each using a 3-of-5 multisig configuration with a 30-day withdrawal timelock and a 90-day payment clawback period. Because these values are baked into the singleton’s permanent layer at creation, they can never be changed — not even by Chia Network Inc. itself. The entire custody arrangement is publicly verifiable on Chia’s blockchain without requiring any trust in off-chain claims.¹⁴

Why the Audit Trail Matters for Chia Proof of Control

Every action taken on a Chia custody singleton — initiating a withdrawal, executing a clawback, beginning a rekey, completing a rekey — is recorded on-chain as a coin spend. The custody tool’s audit command can export the full history as a CSV, showing the exact time, action type, amounts, and recipient addresses for every event since the wallet’s creation. Critically, even cancelled actions appear in the log — a clawback is recorded alongside the withdrawal it stopped.¹⁵

This is the heart of proving control without moving funds. You don’t demonstrate authority by transferring assets. You demonstrate it by showing the on-chain record: who signed, when, what threshold was met, what happened next. For regulators, investors, or counterparties who need to verify that a treasury is being managed responsibly, that record is sufficient. No third-party custodian needs to vouch for you.

For Chia farming operations, the equivalent audit trail is the pool protocol. Every partial proof submitted by a farmer is timestamped and logged by the pool. Combined with the Plot NFT’s on-chain singleton status, any observer can verify exactly how much space a farming operation committed and for how long. This approach to distributed storage verification is one reason Chia’s architecture is increasingly relevant beyond farming — extending into verifiable data storage, DePIN infrastructure, and enterprise proof-of-reserve applications. To understand the network-level context for these capabilities, including upcoming changes in the Proof of Space 2.0 hard fork, see our guide to Chia’s network evolution and the Proof of Space hard fork.

Security Threats and Why They Fail Against Chia Proof of Control

Understanding the attacks that don’t work helps explain why Chia’s design is so durable. Grinding attacks — where an adversary tries to simulate alternate blockchain histories to win more blocks — face an insurmountable wall: VDFs are sequential. More processors don’t help. To rewrite ten years of Chia history would require ten real-world years of computation, running continuously. No parallel shortcut exists.

Double-farming attacks on pool operators — where a dishonest farmer collects pool income until they win a block, then claims the full block reward solo — are blocked by the Plot NFT’s enforced exit delay. The smart contract cannot be bypassed. The waiting period is not a policy; it is code.

Key theft from custody vaults is addressed through the multisig threshold and the slow rekey. If one of five keys is compromised, the attacker cannot act alone — they still need two more signatures. If the key holder discovers the breach, they can initiate a rekey using the remaining legitimate keys. Even during a slow rekey with minimal signers, the time penalty gives the organization a window to detect and respond. There is no single point of failure in a correctly configured Chia custody arrangement.¹⁶

Conclusion: Control Is Proven, Not Claimed

Chia proof of control changes the question from “do you trust them?” to “can the math prove it?” For individual farmers, that means Plot NFTs that record every pool assignment change immutably, private keys that bind physical disk space to digital identity, and partial proofs that provide a continuous audit trail of farming activity. For enterprises, it means custody vaults with on-chain records of every authorization, every withdrawal attempt, and every clawback — visible to anyone, falsifiable by no one. The approach works at every scale, from a hobbyist with a few hard drives to a publicly listed company securing hundreds of millions of dollars in reserves. Start by exploring the custody tool documentation or setting up your first Plot NFT — the tools exist today, and the audit trail begins the moment you do.

Chia Proof of Control FAQs

What is Chia proof of control and how does it differ from proof of stake?

Chia proof of control is a cryptographic system where farmers prove exclusive ownership of storage space — and organizations prove asset custody — through math, not fund transfers. Unlike proof of stake, which requires locking up cryptocurrency as collateral and carries slashing risk, Chia proof of control is backed by physical hard drive space and requires no capital at stake.

How does Chia proof of control create an audit trail without moving funds?

Every action on a Chia custody singleton — withdrawal initiations, clawbacks, rekeys — is recorded as a coin spend on the blockchain. The custody tool can export the full history as a CSV. For farming, partial proofs submitted to pools create a timestamped log of storage commitment. Neither process requires transferring funds to prove anything.

Can a pool steal my XCH if I use a Plot NFT?

No. The Plot NFT is a smart contract that you control through your private key. A pool server can receive partial proofs and distribute rewards, but it has no authority to access your wallet or force actions on your Plot NFT. You can switch or leave a pool at any time after the exit waiting period.

What happens to the audit trail if I clawback a Chia custody withdrawal?

The clawback is recorded on-chain just like the original withdrawal initiation. Both events appear in the custody audit log with timestamps and the signing keys involved. The result is a complete, immutable history — including the fact that a withdrawal was started and then cancelled — that any observer can verify.

How many keys are required to move funds from Chia’s prefarm custody?

Chia Network Inc.’s prefarm cold wallets require 3 of 5 private keys to authorize any withdrawal. A 30-day withdrawal timelock must be satisfied first, and funds then sit in escrow for 90 days during which clawback is possible. These parameters are permanently set in the custody singleton’s on-chain code and cannot be changed.

Chia Proof of Control Citations

1. Chia Network. “Pool Farming.” Chia Documentation. https://docs.chia.net/reference-client/farming/pool-farming/
2. Chia Network. “Proof of Space.” Chia Documentation. https://docs.chia.net/chia-blockchain/consensus/proof-of-space-1.0/
3. Chia Network. “Proof of Space — Plotting.” Chia Documentation. https://docs.chia.net/chia-blockchain/consensus/proof-of-space-1.0/
4. Chia Network. “Proof of Time (VDFs).” Chia Documentation. https://docs.chia.net/chia-blockchain/consensus/proof-of-time/
5. Chia Network. “Pooling User Guide.” GitHub Wiki. https://github.com/Chia-Network/chia-blockchain/wiki/Pooling-User-Guide
6. Chialisp. “Pooling.” https://chialisp.com/pooling/
7. Chia Network. “Pool Farming — Points.” Chia Documentation. https://docs.chia.net/reference-client/farming/pool-farming/
8. Chia Network. “Pool Protocol.” Chia Documentation. https://docs.chia.net/pool-protocol/
9. Chia Network. “Chiapos — Proof of Space Library.” GitHub. https://github.com/Chia-Network/chiapos
10. Chia Network. “Custody Tool Description.” Chia Documentation. https://docs.chia.net/guides/custody-tool-description/
11. Chia Network. “Custody Tool Description — Withdrawal.” Chia Documentation. https://docs.chia.net/guides/custody-tool-description/
12. Chia Network. “Custody Tool Description — Rekey.” Chia Documentation. https://docs.chia.net/guides/custody-tool-description/
13. Chia Network. “A New Home for the Prefarm.” Chia Blog. https://www.chia.net/2022/10/29/a-new-home-for-the-prefarm/
14. Chia Network. “A New Home for the Prefarm — Prefarm Settings.” Chia Blog. https://www.chia.net/2022/10/29/a-new-home-for-the-prefarm/
15. Chia Network. “Custody Tool CLI — audit command.” Chia Documentation. https://docs.chia.net/reference-client/cli-reference/custody-tool-cli/
16. Chia Network. “Custody Tool User Guide.” Chia Documentation. https://docs.chia.net/guides/custody-tool-user-guide/