In
cryptography, a
commitment scheme allows one to commit to a chosen value (or chosen statement) while keeping it hidden to others, with the ability to reveal the committed value later. Commitment schemes are designed so that a party cannot change the value or statement after they have committed to it: that is, commitment schemes are
binding. Commitment schemes have important applications in a number of
cryptographic protocols including secure coin flipping,
zero-knowledge proofs, and
secure computation.