HackMD
Dear Polkadot Fellows,
My name is Syed (@drskalman), and I have been actively involved with the Polkadot ecosystem and Web3 foundation for over five years. I am currently petitioning to join Polkadot Fellowship.
As a Research Scientist at Web3 Foundation, I have developed and implemented cryptographic algorithms advancing the cryptographic efficiency of Polkadot. I started by contributing to Polkadot Specification by creating the specification conformance test suit for Polkadot implementations:
https://github.com/w3f/polkadot-spec/graphs/contributors
https://github.com/w3f/polkadot-tests/graphs/contributors
Further on, I focused on designing and delivering advanced cryptographic protocols on Polkadot. Part of my effort is focused on bringing Web3Sum/APK Proofs to Polkadot which enables efficient bridging from Polkadot to other chains. To that end, I have refactored and modernized the w3f-bls library and rebased it to use Arkworks cryptography framework (instead of Zcash), and currently I'm the principal maintainer of it:
https://github.com/w3f/bls/pull/29
I have researched and implemented hash-to-curve capabilities for all curves used in various Polkadot crypto scheme, in Arkworks library. This was needed to be included for the BLS library to work:
https://github.com/arkworks-rs/algebra/pull/343
https://github.com/w3f/arkworks-curves/pull/11
https://github.com/arkworks-rs/curves/pull/138
https://github.com/w3f/bls/pull/57
https://github.com/arkworks-rs/algebra/pull/659
I have implemented the fast BLS flavour designed by the Web3 foundation and contributed to its paper:
https://eprint.iacr.org/2022/1611
https://github.com/w3f/bls/pull/66
With the help of @davxy, I have implemented the BLS crypto scheme in Substrate:
https://github.com/paritytech/substrate/pull/13618
I'm currently working on making BEEFY protocol to produce and handle BLS signatures alongside ECDSA signatures. This will enable Web3Sum to prove Polkadot states on other chains efficiently:
https://github.com/paritytech/substrate/pull/13618
https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/pull/1705
https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/pull/1816
I have also written an easy to follow step by step guide to Web3Sum/APK proof so other researchers and ecosystem developers can take advantage of it:
https://medium.com/web3foundation/apk-proofs-by-hand-and-sage-3f5feb3fcca4
Another research contribution of mine is related to searching for SNARK-friendlier pairing-friendly curves for Polkadot allowing more efficient generation of recursive SNARK proves (such as those we use in Web3Sum):
https://github.com/w3f/prime-order-elliptic-curves/commits/master (repo only accessible to W3F members contains unpublished research)
My research also involves developing a more space-efficient representation of finite field elements which gives three times reduction in the proof size of some of the SNARK used in W3F protocols:
https://github.com/w3f/algebraic-torus/commits/main
I hope the Polkadot Fellowship finds my contribution worthy of awarding me membership of Rank I in the aforementioned collective.
