In this episode, Anna and Kobi speak with Benedikt Bünz, Chief Scientist at Espresso Systems and Professor at NYU.

They start with a quick update on Espresso's architecture, its role in delivering fast finality across chains, and the challenges of building high-throughput blockchain infrastructure. The conversation then turns to Benedikt’s recent research on folding schemes, hash-based proof systems such as Arc and Warp, and Golden, a non-interactive distributed key generation protocol for threshold signatures.

The episode later explores Flock, a new proof system for standard hash functions such as Blake3 and SHA-256 that exceeds Ethereum's post-quantum proving targets without relying on specialized hash functions. They conclude by discussing proof system performance, post-quantum cryptography, and the use of AI-assisted development in cryptographic engineering. Related Links

Systems and Infrastructure

Additional Reading

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