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While quantum machines are still a long way from being able to break modern encryption, US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) launched a competition in 2016 to develop new standards for cryptography that will be more quantum-proof. The winners are set to be announced in 2022, but last week the organization announced that it had narrowed the initial field of 69 contenders down to just 15. And so far a single approach to "post-quantum cryptography" accounts for the majority of the finalists: lattice-based cryptography. Lattice-based cryptography instead uses enormous grids with billions of individual points across thousands of dimensions. Breaking the code means getting from one specific point to another-which is essentially impossible unless you know the route. NIST thinks is that lattice problems are really hard, but they seem quite efficient in terms of time to generate keys, time to construct signatures, and also efficient in terms of memory.

"Identity-based cryptography is a type of public-key cryptography in which a publicly known string representing an individual or organization is used as a public key. The public string could include an email address, domain name, or a physical IP address."

The BIS Innovation Hub's Swiss Centre launched Project Tourbillon to explore how to reconcile central bank digital currency (CBDC) design trade-offs between cyber resiliency, scalability and privacy. For example, higher resiliency against cyber-attacks requires additional cryptography, which can slow down payment processing. Privacy must be weighed against the need to counter money laundering, terrorism financing and other illicit payments. Project Tourbillon aims to reconcile these trade-offs by combining proven technologies such as blind signatures and mix networks with the latest research on cryptography and CBDC design suggested by David Chaum and Thomas Moser in a 2021 Swiss National Bank working paper. The conclusions of this project will be relevant for both wholesale and retail CBDC systems. The goal is to finish the prototype by mid-2023.

"Zero-knowledge schemes have recently become a popular attempt to offer users privacy in an attribute-based credential system. In this article, we do not contest the mathematics of these schemes; we assume it is logically sound. Instead, we draw attention to the trade-off that is made when employing cryptography instead of trusted parties to protect user privacy. We assert that, for these approaches to create the trust required by credential verifiers, they must introduce mechanisms that limit their utility and create significant privacy risk to the user that cuts against data minimization goals. Greater trust must be placed in the shelf life of cryptography to prevent the user from being unwantonly correlated than alternative approaches. Just as we would discourage storing encrypted private data on public blockchains, we discourage this approach here. Lastly, this article introduces the concept of a trusted witness which provides privacy for honest users and solves the privacy-trust problem without the disadvantages of the zero-knowledge approach."

"One of the technologies that will undoubtedly change Web3 is zero-knowledge (ZK) cryptography. ZK has long been considered a potential game-changer for ensuring the privacy, security and integrity of blockchain applications. The rapid investment and development of zero-knowledge proofs is an important signal that the technology is getting ready for prime time."

IDEMIA Secure Transactions (IST) demonstrated the first ever offline central bank digital currency (CBDC) payments incorporating enhanced security against quantum threats. Offline CBDC allows digital currency transactions without internet, ensuring cash-like secure and seamless payments in areas with limited connectivity. This offline CBDC payment transaction uses quantum-resistant public key cryptography endorsed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The offline transactions demonstrated as part of this quantum-safe solution are performed using two smartphones thanks to NFC. Money is stored inside a secure element fortified with quantum-safe cryptography to guarantee security and prevent the risks of double spending or unauthorized money creation.

On July 5, 2022, the U.S. government's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) selected four protocols that, with some revision, will be deployed as a cryptographic quantum shield, plus four additional candidates still under consideration. However, almost immediately, a pair of researchers broke one of those candidates in an hour on a laptop.

The BIS Innovation is launching a project to examine how the introduction of quantum-resistant cryptography will affect payment system performance, and investigate and test potential cryptographic solutions that can withstand the vastly improved processing power of quantum computers. Given the long-term sensitivity of financial data, this vulnerability must be addressed well in advance of the advent of quantum computing.

We develop a theory of long-run equilibrium in blockchain-based financial systems. Our theory elucidates the key market design features that separate proof of work and proof of stake approaches in the long run. Under proof of work, wasteful computation is used to secure the system, and users' utility in equilibrium is determined by the threat of a fork. Under proof of stake, by contrast, users' utility in equilibrium is generally above the fork threat level because custodians can use relational contracts to incentivize a higher quality of service. Relational contracts under proof of stake rely only on local institutions - but combining them with cryptography can create a platform for formal global contracts.

The Algorand team explicitly designed the platform with the idea of catering to large scale payment processing, enterprise uses, mainstream user adoption, and a vision of a "borderless economy" from scratch.

France's Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF) clarified its crypto-asset position in its response to the European Commission's consultation. Though the AMF defines any crypto-asset as "a digital asset that may depend on cryptography and exists on a distributed ledger," it still thinks it's early for precise classification of such assets. However, it clarified that proper distinction between crypto-assets that are qualified as financial instruments and that falls under electronic money should be made.

Algorand is a Pure Proof of Stake (PPoS) blockchain designed to facilitate the future of finance. It was designed by Turing Award-winning cryptography expert Silvio Micali and is supported by the works of the Algorand Foundation.

eCurrency and Crunchfish are partnering to offer an offline central bank digital currency (CBDC) solution. The eCurrency retail CBDC platform enables central banks to issue secure digital bearer instruments utilizing the Digital Symmetric Core Currency Cryptography (DSC3) technology and supporting tiered distribution through existing banking and fintech ecosystems. Crunchfish offers digital cash solutions where payments can be made completely offline without compromising personal privacy.

"Not all in the crypto security world are convinced by the urgency of the matter. In some quarters, an active debate is being had about whether quantum computing will ever be strong enough to break standard encryption protocols. The question is of particularly relevance to those active in the cryptocurrency sphere, since so much of the sector depends on secure cryptography to retain its value. Opinions, however, remain hugely divided."

While trustless sidechains on Bitcoin may still be quite a few years away, there are other layer-two protocols, such as federated sidechains and the Lightning Network, that allow Bitcoin to gain the features of the most popular altcoins right now - albeit usually with security trade-offs. These additional protocol layers will likely become relatively trustless eventually, as advancements in cryptography are made over time.

Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) have recently gained more attention for being one of blockchain's most exciting use cases, and the hype is well founded. In concept, DIDs aim to use cutting-edge cryptography and unique identifiers to enable users to validate themselves online, while still dictating when and how that identity data is used. Put simply, Decentralized IDs have the potential to help internet users around the world wrest back control of their data from the corporations that presently control it.

BlackRock Financial Management posted a job ad for a VP-level blockchain lead to create and implement strategies designed to drive demand for the firm's offerings and enhance the value proposition to clients of the firm's investments and technology offerings. The candidates must have experience in: articulating the technological foundations of blockchain technology including cryptographic hash functions, distributed network consensus mechanisms, and public-private key cryptography; devising and articulating fundamental valuation methodologies for crypto-assets; evaluating game theory and decentralizing governance models associated with blockchain technology; and working with key drivers of blockchain networks' design and their impact on the four key dimensions of blockchain performance including speed, scalability, privacy, and security.

"Recent innovations in self-sovereign identity and zero-knowledge cryptography, along with proper ecosystem design, allow for a novel approach to know-your-customer (KYC) that protects the customer's privacy without reducing transparency. The proposed solution concept, zkKYC, removes the need for the customer to share any personal information with a regulated business for the purpose of KYC, and yet provides the transparency to allow for a customer to be identified if and when that is ruled necessary by a designated governing entity (e.g. regulator, law enforcement). This approach breaks the traditional privacy vs. transparency trade-off and provides structured transparency, resulting in a net positive outcome for all parties involved."

"Over the past decade, advances in public key cryptography, hash functions, virtualisation, distributed consensus, multiparty computation, and peer-to-peer networking have led to experimentation around record sharing between erstwhile competitive firms. Over the past five years, a series of independent efforts has chaperoned regulatory requirements into a digital, automated state that enables secure information sharing in full compliance with the law, while simultaneously enabling market participants to mutualise infrastructure that would otherwise be run by a single trusted party. With these developments, many of the services that centralised intermediaries currently provide could potentially be replaced by decentralised infrastructures or decentralised financial market infrastructure (dFMI). dFMI also enables a change in business structure, where a re-alignment of incentives can take place such that those firms taking risks can fully bear the consequences of these risks."

"Current quantum computers are still toy prototypes, and the engineering advances required to build a functionally useful quantum computer are somewhere between a few years away and impossible. Even so, we already know that that such a computer could potentially factor large numbers and compute discrete logs, and break the RSA and Diffie-Hellman public-key algorithms in all of the useful key sizes."