About Me
I'm a Postdoc Researcher at Stanford University, advised by Prof. Dan Boneh. Previously, I was the Chief Cryptographer at Espresso Systems.
I completed my Ph.D. in 2019 from
University of California, Santa Barbara,
advised by
Prof. Stefano Tessaro and
Prof. Huijia (Rachel) Lin.
I spent the year 2018-2019 as a visiting Ph.D. student at
University of Washington.
I received my bachelor degree in 2014 from Shanghai Jiaotong University,
ACM Honors Class.
Research interests: Post-quantum cryptography, zero knowledge and succinct proofs, blockchain technology.
Research Highlights
Folding (Accumulation) Schemes
- Symphony: The first framework that turns a folding scheme into a scalable SNARK system in the random oracle model. Along the way, we develop a new lattice-based folding scheme that supports folding thousands of instances at once with near optimal prover efficiency.
- LatticeFold / LatticeFold+:
New lattice-based folding schemes
([BCLMS20],
[KST21])
for NP statements that is post-quantum secure and naturally leads to efficient
recursive SNARKs
and PCDs.
The estimated performance is competitive with the top
pre-quantum folding schemes.
Implementation: Nethermind.
Hash-based SNARKs
- BaseFold:
A multilinear polynomial commitment scheme
with polylogarithmic verifier and proof size, that can be instantiated over almost any fields.
This enables more flexible options for selecting fields for SNARK instantiations.
- Blaze:
A multilinear polynomial commitment over binary fields with strictly linear-time prover and polylogarithmic verifier.
For large computation instances, Blaze's prover speed is similar to the fastest SNARK in the literature such as Brakedown, while achieving 10x smaller proof/verification.
- HyperPlonk:
A proof system specifically designed for proving large complex statements (e.g. ZKEVMs)
by enabling high-degree custom gates.
Implementations: EspressoSys; Ethereum Foundation; and an adapted version from Ulvetanna based on Binius.
Memory-Hard Functions
- Optimal Memory-Hardness of Scrypt: Scrypt is a popular password hash function. We formally prove that it is optimally memory hard. Informally speaking, the attacker cannot break the password hashing scheme even if it is equipped with highly parallelized and optimized hardwares (e.g. ASICs). The result won the Best Paper Award at EUROCRYPT 2017.
Publications
(Authors are listed in alphabetical order by last name, unless an asterisk(*) is indicated.)
-
Symphony: Scalable SNARKs in the Random Oracle Model from Lattice-Based High-Arity Folding
(link)
Binyi Chen
In submission. -
Pairing-Based Batch Arguments for NP with a Linear-Size CRS
(link)
Binyi Chen, Noel Elias, David J. Wu
ASIACRYPT 2025. -
LatticeFold: A Lattice-based Folding Scheme and its Applications to Succinct Proof Systems
(link)
Dan Boneh, Binyi Chen
ASIACRYPT 2025 & SBC 2024. -
LatticeFold+: Faster, Simpler, Shorter Lattice-Based Folding for Succinct Proof Systems
(link)
Dan Boneh, Binyi Chen
CRYPTO 2025 & ZKSummit 13. -
Blaze: Fast SNARKs from Interleaved RAA Codes
(link)
Martijn Brehm, Binyi Chen, Ben Fisch, Nicolas Resch, Ron D. Rothblum, Hadas Zeilberger
EUROCRYPT 2025 & ZKSummit 13. -
VerITAS: Verifying Image Transformations at Scale
(link)
* Trisha Datta, Binyi Chen, Dan Boneh
S&P 2025. -
The Espresso Sequencing Network: HotShot Consensus, Tiramisu Data-Availability, and Builder-Exchange
(link)
SBC 2024.
-
Mangrove: A Scalable Framework for Folding-based SNARKs
(link)
* Wilson Nguyen, Trisha Datta, Binyi Chen, Nirvan Tyagi, Dan Boneh
CRYPTO 2024. -
BaseFold: Efficient Field-Agnostic Polynomial Commitment Schemes from Foldable Codes
(link)
* Hadas Zeilberger, Binyi Chen, Ben Fisch
CRYPTO 2024. -
LatticeGen: A Cooperative Framework which Hides Generated Text in a Lattice for Privacy-Aware Generation on Cloud
(link)
* Mengke Zhang, Tianxing He, Tianle Wang, Lu Mi, Fatemehsadat Mireshghallah, Binyi Chen, Hao Wang, Yulia Tsvetkov
NAACL 2024. -
ProtoStar: Generic Efficient Accumulation/Folding for Special Sound
Protocols (link)
Benedikt Bünz, Binyi Chen
ASIACRYPT 2023. -
Hyperplonk: Plonk with Linear-Time Prover and High-Degree Custom Gates
(link)
* Binyi Chen, Benedikt Bünz, Dan Boneh, Zhenfei Zhang
EUROCRYPT 2023. -
VeriZexe: Decentralized Private Computation with Universal Setup
(link)
* Alex Xiong, Binyi Chen, Zhenfei Zhang, Benedikt Bünz, Ben Fisch, Fernando Krell, Philippe Camacho
USENIX Security 2023. -
Continuous Space-Bounded Non-Malleable Codes from Stronger Proofs-of-Space
(link)
Binyi Chen, Yilei Chen, Kristina Hostakova, Pratyay Mukherjee
CRYPTO 2019. -
Memory-hard Functions from Cryptographic Primitives
(link)
Binyi Chen, Stefano Tessaro
CRYPTO 2019. -
Scrypt is Maximally Memory-Hard
(link)
Joël Alwen, Binyi Chen, Krzysztof Pietrzak, Leonid Reyzin, Stefano Tessaro
EUROCRYPT 2017 (Best Paper Award). -
On the Complexity of Scrypt and Proofs of Space in the Parallel Random Oracle Model
(link)
Joël Alwen, Binyi Chen, Chethan Kamath, Vladimir Kolmogorov, Krzysztof Pietrzak, Stefano Tessaro
EUROCRYPT 2016. -
Oblivious Parallel RAM: Improved Efficiency and Generic Constructions
(link)
Binyi Chen, Huijia Lin, Stefano Tessaro
TCC 2016-A. -
Mechanism Design for Daily Deals
(link)
* Binyi Chen, Tao Qin, Tie-Yan Liu
AAMAS 2015. -
K-Anonymous Signaling Scheme
(link)
* Binyi Chen, Tao Qin, Tie-Yan Liu
arXiv 2013. -
Collaborative Topic Regression with Social Regularization for Tag Recommendation
(link)
* Hao Wang, Binyi Chen, Wu-Jun Li
IJCAI 2013.
Talks
-
Pairing-Based Batch Arguments for NP with a Linear-Size CRS (slides)
- at ASIACRYPT 2025, Dec 2025 (link)
-
Scalable SNARKs in the Random Oracle Model from High-Arity Folding (slides)
- at Bay Area Crypto Day, Nov 2025 (link)
-
An Introduction to Lattice-Based Folding Schemes
- at Simons Proofs Workshop, Jul 2025 (link)
- LatticeFold+: Faster, Simpler, Shorter Lattice-Based Folding for Succinct Proof Systems
-
VerITAS: Verifying Image Transformations at Scale (slides)
- at Sumcheck Builders Seminars, Apr 2025 (link)
-
LatticeFold: A Lattice-based Folding Scheme and its Applications to Succinct Proof Systems
- at ASIACRYPT 2025, Dec 2025 (slides)
- at Visa Research, Bay Area Crypto Day, Nov 2024
- at The Science of Blockchain Conference, Aug 2024 (link)
- at ZK Study Club, Jun 2024 (link)
- at UCSD, Theory Seminar, May 2024
- at CMU, Cylab Crypto Seminar, May 2024 (link)
- at UT-Austin, Crypto Seminar, May 2024
- at Northwestern University, Crypto Seminar, Apr 2024
- at NTT Research, CIS Seminar, Apr 2024
- at Stanford University, Security Seminar, Apr 2024
- at Privacy & Scaling Explorations, Apr 2024
-
BaseFold: Efficient Field-Agnostic Polynomial Commitment Schemes from Foldable Codes (slides)
- at University of California, Berkleley, Crypto Seminar, Feb 2024
- at Privacy & Scaling Explorations (supported by Ethereum Foundation), Feb 2024 (link)
- at Stanford University, Crypto Reading Group, Jan 2024
- ProtoStar: Generic Efficient Accumulation/Folding for Special Sound Protocols (slides)
-
Hyperplonk: Plonk with linear-time prover and high-degree custom gates (slides)
- at New York University, Crypto Seminar, 2023
- at ZK Study Club, 2022 (link)
- at University of California, Berkleley, Zero Knowledge Proof Workshop (affiliated with CESC), 2022
-
Scrypt is maximally memory-hard (slides)
- at EUROCRYPT Best Paper Award Talk, 2017
-
On the complexity of scrypt and proofs of space in the parallel random oracle model
- at EUROCRYPT 2016
-
Oblivious parallel RAM: improved efficiency and generic constructions
- at TCC 2016-A
Teaching
Stanford University
- Co-designer and instructor: CS 355: Applied Zero Knowledge Proofs (Website)
Service
Program Committee:
- EUROCRYPT 2025, 2026
- ASIACRYPT 2025
- TCC 2026
- ZKProof 8
Reviewer:
- CRYPTO 2015, 2017, 2018, 2021, 2024, 2025
- EUROCRYPT 2022
- ASIACRYPT 2016, 2017, 2024
- FOCS 2016, 2019
- STOC 2025
- TCC 2015, 2016, 2017, 2024, 2025
- PKC 2018, 2019, 2024
- CCS 2021
- The Science of Blockchain Conference (SBC) 2024