Research

My research interests span cryptography, computer security, and privacy with a large focus on blockchain-based systems and distributed protocols. Broadly, I work on interdisciplinary projects that combine knowledge from various fields toward the design of secure and efficient systems and protocols. In my research, I look for real life problems and build solutions backed by rigorous theoretical foundations as well as efficient implementations and thorough performance testing. I also work on conceptual projects that aim to bridge the gap between theory and practice of cryptography.

Current Projects

  • Secure performance boosters for Web 3.0: Develop secure sidechain-based frameworks for boosting performance and improving scalability of Web 3.0 applications, in particular the paradigm of blockchain-based resource markets and AMMs. This is in addition to laying down foundations of modular provable security for these systems. More about our sidechain-based performance booster framework, chainBoost, can be found in our (paper, EuroS&P 2024) and (paper). We further develop competitive online policies for collateral management in layer-two protocols and their applications that can be found in our (paper, AFT 2024).

  • Private computing for blockchains: Build a privacy-preserving smart contract (PPSC) scheme using fully homomorphic encryption and non-interactive zero knowledge proofs. More about our PPSC framework can be found in our (paper, EuroS&P 2023), and more about current private computing solutions for blockchains can be found in our (SoK paper, EuroS&P 2022).

  • Delegation of cryptographic capabilities: Build constructions for delegating cryptographic capabilities, such as digital signatures, that are timed, revocable and anonymous, and explore their applications to Web 3.0. More about acheiving this notion for proxy signatures can be found in our (paper, ISC 2024).

  • Basing cryptography on biochemical assumptions: Construct bounded-query memory devices, or consumable tokens, from proteins, and use them in various cryptographic applications such as digital lockers and bounded-execution programs. More about these biological consumable tokens, their security and applications, can be found in our (paper, Eurocrypt 2022). Also, for a comparison of the no-cloning principle of unclonable polymers and that of quantum computing, in terms of building unclonable cryptography, check our (paper, Secrypt 2023). In a more recent (paper, CSCML 2024), we show how consumable tokens can be used to contruct password-authenticated cryptography.