Benedikt Bünz

About

Benedikt Bünz is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at NYU Courant and the cofounder and chief scientist of Espresso Systems. His research focuses on applied cryptography, consensus, and game theory, particularly in relation to cryptocurrencies. He aims to enhance the privacy, usability, and security of blockchain protocols by applying novel theoretical insights with real-world applications. His main research interests lie in the science of blockchains, utilizing tools from applied cryptography, game theory, and consensus mechanisms. Bünz is actively involved in teaching, including a course on the cryptography of blockchains at NYU. His work includes significant contributions to zero-knowledge proof systems, verifiable delay functions, and scalable proof systems, which have been deployed in various blockchain systems such as Monero, Mobilecoin, Chia, Filecoin, and Ethereum 2.0. Through his research, he addresses critical challenges in blockchain technology, including privacy, scalability, and ecological impact.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Computer Security
• Discrete mathematics
• Mathematics
• Database
• Programming language
• Theoretical computer science
• World Wide Web
• Operating system
• Algorithm

Selected publications

• Protostar: Generic Efficient Accumulation/Folding for Special-Sound Protocols

  Lecture notes in computer science · 2023-01-01 · 25 citations

  book-chapterOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Need for zkSpeed: Accelerating HyperPlonk for Zero-Knowledge Proofs

  2025-06-20 · 6 citations

  preprintOpen access

  Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs) are a rapidly growing technique for privacy-preserving and verifiable computation.ZKPs enable one party (a prover: P) to prove to another (a verifier: V) that a statement is true or correct without revealing any additional information.This powerful capability has led to ZKPs being applied and proposed for application in blockchain technologies, verifiable machine learning, and electronic voting.However, ZKPs have yet to see widespread, ubiquitous adoption due to the…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• A Survey of Two Verifiable Delay Functions Using Proof of Exponentiation

  IACR Communications in Cryptology · 2024-04-09 · 6 citations

  articleOpen access

  A verifiable delay function (VDF) is an important tool used for adding delay in decentralized applications. This paper surveys and compares two beautiful verifiable delay functions, one due to Pietrzak, and the other due to Wesolowski, In addition, we provide a new computational proof of security for one of them, present an attack on an incorrect implementation of the other, and compare the complexity assumptions needed for both schemes.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Proofs for Deep Thought: Accumulation for Large Memories and Deterministic Computations

  Lecture notes in computer science · 2024-12-08 · 5 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Multilinear Schwartz-Zippel Mod N and Lattice-Based Succinct Arguments

  Lecture notes in computer science · 2023-01-01 · 5 citations

  book-chapterOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Dan Boneh

  Stanford University

  13 shared

• Ben Fisch

  10 shared

• Sven Seuken

  9 shared

• Benjamin Lubin

  Boston University

  9 shared

• Pratyush Mishra

  7 shared

• Alessandro Chiesa

  5 shared

• Joseph Bonneau

  New York University

  5 shared

• Nicholas Spooner

  New York University

  4 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Improving the Privacy, Scalability, and Ecological Impact

  Unknown

Awards & honors

• To appear at Eurocrypt 2025
• Published at ASIACRYPT 2024
• Published at EUROCRYPT 2023
• Published at CCS 2023
• Published at Usenix 2023

Similar researchers at New York University

• Jiawei Zhangh-76
• Foster Provosth-60
• Panagiotis Ipeirotish-50