# PSE <> EF Cryptography

2024-12-18 call agenda & rolling notes

## Discussion items

- EF Cryptography team
- Scope
- Research areas
- PSE upcoming research areas
- Client-side proving
- Delegated proving
- Post-Quantum Cryptography
- OPRF
- [iO](https://hackmd.io/@SoraSuegami/H18y3P_Nkl)
- Collaboration opportunities
- Post-Quantum Cryptography research direction
- Advanced crypto (we, iO, ..)
- Ethereum roadmap? (ease block verification, state purging, ..)
- Cryptography forum
- Something more general than ethresearch?
- Early experiment: https://forum.pse.dev/

## Notes

- EF Crypto
- Designs that could have used benchmarking
- Would be nice to know what PSE wants to do
- Focus
- Ethereum-specific stuff
- Also general ZK stuff
- PSE
- More Ethereum-roadmap stuff?
- Hash-based signatures
- Spoke to Kev about this
- TLDR: no, not trying to focus on Ethereum
- Why haven't we collaborated?
- e.g. Antonio Sanso
- More experience than me coding within PSE. Failed. Pity it didn't work out'
- Not a lot of coding skills
- e.g. George
- Signature aggregation project. Approached PSE people for help b/c had SNARKs, had sig agg, we could use extra people. Not even benchmarking, trying out designs. Not much appeal. Hard to ask for too much. Unclear what is in/out of scope. Hard to know how to interface - try 3 random people you know best
- e.g. proof of validator. make a proof that you're an ETH validator. Can do things if you are.
- Direct implications on the roadmap
- 2 years ago did the research part (anon credentials). Now a few open researchy-things are need to ironed out, then it goes to implementation. Not a paper thing. But it's interesting. Could see PSE being interested (or not). If not, we would go to grant or Kev's team for help on implementation
- Still interesting thing to think about. Not just a spec to implement. Requires creativity, not just codemonkey
- Top down: Ping Carlos to do this?
- Bottom up: Or more organic approach? Nerd snipe specific researchers, find an advocate
- A: Carlos as a primary interface
- Dmitry
- A) Exploring if ideas are posssible. Not needed for benchmarking, but understanding what's feasible. If people who know how different things perform, that would be valuable. e.g. proof aggregation, understaning tradeoffs - we already may have answers for these questions. Could help guide their direction & they can share results, ultimately bring a spec
- B) Concrete spec, which can be prototype. Here's out output, here's ideas for what's next
- Approach?
-
- Periodic Recurring call? Present on projects we're working on? Different stages?
- Explain what we're doing. Connecting the docs, make introductions
- After a few of these, create the horizontal connections, know who to contact
- Wishlist/queue for work people want help with
-
- Arantxa
- Not only about benchmarking
- Exericse we could/should do as teams. What is the place we could give to other teams? Full collaborations
- e.g. crypto team: not 100% focused on coding
- crypto person embedded in PSE project prob not a path
- e.g. PSE team not primarily focused on papers
- Identifying itersection, interface,
- Chance
- Takes on schemes from people. Lightweight calls for discussion

## Action items

- [ ] Sam to surface "wish list" / queue for research
- [ ] Use TG group as default place to chat, share ideas, share 2-way request