From October 10 to 15, Pablo Deymonnaz (CCSD Director), Diego Kingston (Scientific Director), Federico Carrone (Director of the Academic Committee), and Manuel Puebla and Mauro Toscano (Academic Committee) took part in a series of workshops in Cambridge organized by the Ethereum Foundation. The gathering brought together more than 120 researchers and engineers.

The context

Much of the cryptography that protects today's communications and digital systems could become vulnerable once quantum computers arrive. No one knows for sure when that will happen, but over the past year the discussion has grown more urgent: a paper by Google showed that breaking certain cryptographic schemes requires fewer resources than previously estimated.

Add to this artificial intelligence. New models have accelerated research in many areas, including the search for weaknesses in cryptographic tools. That makes it all the more important to review systems more rigorously, to try to attack them before others do, and to replace their components with quantum-resistant alternatives.

One week, four topics

The work was organized into four workshops:

  • Post-quantum cryptography: how to replace today's digital signatures with schemes that resist quantum computers, without losing efficiency and in a way that they can run on devices such as hardware wallets.
  • Formal verification: using computer-checked mathematical proofs to guarantee that a system does exactly what it claims to do. It was one of the most prominent topics of the week, in the other workshops as well.
  • Fast finality: how to get operations on a distributed network definitively confirmed in less time.
  • Hash functions and cryptanalysis: which hash functions are worth adopting and how resistant they are, even against AI-assisted attack attempts.

A theme that ran through several talks was the use of AI agents to optimize cryptographic implementations. The shared conclusion is that those optimizations can only be trusted if they are backed by clear, formally verified specifications.

What we take away

Beyond the talks, the week was an opportunity to talk with colleagues from different research groups, learn about ongoing initiatives, and exchange ideas.

Several of the topics discussed in Cambridge will feed into the Center's upcoming activities, from the study group to seminars and public talks.

We thank the Ethereum Foundation for organizing the event.