korrents

What Vitalik Buterin thinks about cryptography

@vitalik-buterin · 6 positions · 1 change of mind

Co-founder of Ethereum. Publishes long essays on mechanism design, governance and what cryptography is for, and returns to his earlier positions to say which parts he no longer holds.

Everything they publish, on ppll ↗

Vitalik Buterin did not write this page.

We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.

6 dated positions, 2026, in their own words. Our reading of what Vitalik Buterin has said — not written or endorsed by them.

  1. Our readingLocal mixing, a new cryptographic obfuscation approach, is a risky bet resembling past failed attempts at white-box cryptography.

    Their wordsThis is a wild and risky bet; it sits on a graveyard of failed attempts at white-box cryptography .

    ↗Obfuscation (Part III): Local Mixingvitalik.eth.limo

    Interesting

  3. Our readingA sufficiently large random reversible circuit is plausibly a secure cryptographic permutation, while a large random irreversible circuit collapses to only a few possible outputs.

    Their wordsA big-enough random reversible circuit is plausibly a secure cryptographic permutation, a big-enough random irreversible circuit degenerates into having only a few possible outputs.

    ↗Obfuscation (Part III): Local Mixingvitalik.eth.limo

    Interesting

  5. Our readingAs of 2026, local mixing has not yet sufficiently eliminated correlations between original circuit values and their obfuscated counterparts.

    Their wordsBut, so far, mixing has not proved to be good enough. There ended up being too many correlations between values in \(C\) and values in the obfuscation that remained.

    ↗Obfuscation (Part III): Local Mixingvitalik.eth.limo

    Interesting
  6. 8 weeks earlier

  7. Our readingObfuscation is the most powerful primitive yet conceived in cryptography.

    Their wordsThe most powerful primitive that has been conceived in cryptography is obfuscation

    ↗Obfuscation: building the final boss of cryptography (Part I)vitalik.eth.limo

    Interesting

  9. Our readingBuilding a secure obfuscation protocol is extremely difficult.

    Their wordsit turns out that making a secure form of obfuscation is really really hard

    ↗Obfuscation: building the final boss of cryptography (Part I)vitalik.eth.limo

    Interesting

  11. Our readingCurrent provably-secure indistinguishability-obfuscation schemes have galactically impractical runtimes.

    Their wordsBut within the good news, there is bad news: the run time is literally galactic

    ↗Obfuscation: building the final boss of cryptography (Part I)vitalik.eth.limo

    Interesting