Nigel Smart

Interested in cryptography and computing on encrypted data in particular

Citizen of Nowhere

@[email protected]
@smartcryptology.bsky.social

[Nigel Smart @SmartCryptology]

@stonecoldpat0 @dionyziz Nope. I am not at Coinbase. This is all Yehuda (and his team)

[Bantshire University @BantshireUni]

Colleagues, please do not refer to our Emeritus Professors as ‘The Ghosts of Christmas Past’, thank you. ^HR

[Sky News @SkyNews]

Santa Claus has left the North Pole 🎄!

Watch Santa's journey as he delivers presents to children worldwide with the NORAD Santa Tracker 🎁🎄 https://t.co/KbbwM7t6Ce

[mutable joe @mutablejoe]

he's making a list
he's checking it twice
he's inserting bullet points
he's moved a picture
shit undo undo
what the margin
trying to insert more bullet points
they're now shifted left?
Santa Claus is struggling with Microsoft Word

[DFNS @dfnsHQ]

🗞️ Our 2024 report is out!

We’re proud to share the numbers that made 2024:

💱 $5 billion processed in transactions (+508% YoY)
📈 2 million new wallets created
📞 60+ million API calls by our clients
🔌 18 new blockchains and third-party apps integrated
🧱 30+ new features and services developed
💹 ARR growth exceeding 300%
🤝 58 new fintech clients onboarded
💰 $12.5 million in extra insurance guaranteed
🙌 5 new team members hired
🛡️ 0 security incidents for the past 1,442 days

This year marked the return of Bitcoin to all-time highs at $108,000, the launch of spot ETFs attracting $3 billion in inflows within the first 30 days, and the rise of stablecoins (+47% to $205B). At @dfnsHQ, we saw 40% of our ARR generated in Q4 alone. A clear shift from delay to acceleration mode has happened.

Our work is paying off. With 120+ companies trusting Dfns, including major players like Stripe-owned Bridge, Standard Chartered-backed Zodia Custody and ADQ-backed Tungsten, we’re solidifying our position as the leading provider of secure, developer-first wallet solutions.

What’s next? 2025 promises to be even bigger.

🔗 In here we explain why: https://t.co/rKP7quoNyS

[Merryn @rentaquill]

All I want for Christmas is a Muppets remake of Saving Private Ryan.

[Optalysys @Optalysys]

As we close 2024, we’re grateful for an incredible year of #growth at Optalysys! To our amazing team & supporters – thank you for driving our success. Here’s to a brighter 2025! ✨

Sign up here to get our latest news and content in 2025 and beyond: https://t.co/rOxMErBcY7

[Rand @randhindi]

I wasn’t going to comment on Sunscreen’s allegations initially, but some people I respect and admire have unfortunately rushed to conclusions without asking me about it first. So here is what actually happened and why we decided to take action.

I find it extremely disheartening that anyone would suggest Zama is a patent troll or a bully. This is an insult to Pascal Paillier, Nigel Smart and all others members of our team who spent decades working on FHE.

We spent years and tens of millions of dollars building our FHE technology. And we have always been transparent about our business model: anyone can use our technology for free for research, prototyping and personal use, but for commercial use a proper commercial license is required. That’s how we are able to publish everything while still having a business. This dual licensing model is very common in open source.

In the 5 years since we founded Zama, we never had any issue with it. There are thousands of developers and researchers using our code for non commercial purposes, and dozens of customers paying us to use it commercially. We have never refused to give a license to someone who asked for it, and we even work with some of our competitors.

The reason people work with us is because we build great products, not because they have no choice. There are plenty of alternatives out there, from other FHE schemes such as CKKS or BGV to other technologies such as MPC, ZK and TEEs.

Now to Sunscreen. We can debate the merits of IP in open source, and I would gladly do so on a X space or podcast. But this is not it, this is a simple case of a company using another company’s technology without a proper license.

For the past couple of years, Sunscreen has been publicly saying in their blog posts, in talks and to investors that they had their own version of FHE that was better than Zama’s. But since none of it was open source, we couldn't actually tell.

During that time however, Sunscreen’s engineers kept asking dozens and dozens of questions on Zama’s developer support channels. Questions about why we implemented things a certain way, or how to modify this or that part of our code base. We thought they were simply trying to run benchmarks to compare, so we helped them by answering their numerous questions. We love when people try to beat us, because it forces us to be even better. We even invite our competitors to talk at our own events!

Earlier this year, Sunscreen published an implementation of TFHE on their github. To our surprise, we found that not only did it replicate the core of our technology (programmable bootstrapping), it even reproduced some bugs we had in a previous implementation!

At this point I tried several times to contact Sunscreen’s CEO, asking her to clarify their intended use of our technology. My purpose here was simple: if she told me this was just for research or benchmarking, then we would be perfectly fine with it. When we finally had a chance to chat however, she told me this wasn’t just for research and that she had plans to use it in a commercial product, at which point I said we should put a commercial partnership in place and have Zama support them. I offered various ways that this partnership could happen: as a customer, as a revenue share partner, as an investor etc. My point here was to give her options.

Eventually Sunscreen made it clear they weren't interested in working together, to which I replied they should then remove our technology from their codebase. I also pointed them to alternative FHE schemes they could use, to make sure they had a fallback. Nobody forced Sunscreen to use our technology, they chose to use it. From this point, they simply stopped responding.

A few days later, without warning, Zama received an official letter from Sunscreen’s lawyers, threatening to sue Zama for “tortious interference with prospective economic advantage and interference with contractual relations under the laws of California (and other jurisdictions)”, and saying that Zama’s patents have no value and that they would not remove it from their products unless we sent them a clear, detailed explanation of where our patents were used in their code. Sunscreen, not Zama, turned this into a legal dispute.

So naturally we answered back through our own lawyers, sending a very detailed explanation showing line by line where their code used our technology, and asking that they stop using it for commercial purposes. We also asked that they stop lying publicly about benchmarks, as this is simply false marketing and detrimental to Zama and the entire space.

So yes, we do think we have the right to defend ourselves against a company that appropriates our work as their own, makes blatantly false claims about it and sends us their lawyers instead of trying to solve this amicably.

If Sunscreen wants to solve this, it’s very simple:
- Either they get a proper license
- Or they make it clear it’s purely for research purposes
- Or they stop using our technology commercially and use one of the many existing alternatives

[Ragged Trousered Philanderer @RaggedTP]

It's important to remind people of the true meaning of Christmas;
ghosts terrorising rich people in the middle of the night until they agree to pay their employees more.

[Bradley Wall 🏳️‍🌈 🇪🇺🇬🇧🌍 @BWallArthur]

That's it. That's the tweet.
Sold by selfserving conmen for the good of our enemies to weaken us and our allies.

[Larry the Cat @Number10cat]

Apparently Fairytale of New York by The Pogues with the wonderful Kirsty MacColl isn't well known outside of Ireland and the UK (not even in New York!)
If you're one of my international friends who doesn't know it, you're in for a treat for the next four minutes:

[Rangzen @revoltinghippie]

I took this photo on 2nd October 2022 on Waterloo Bridge. Just Stop Oil supporters don't block Ambulances, rich people who don't like paying inheritance tax do

[DFNS @dfnsHQ]

🆕 @dfnsHQ now supports @ibtcnetwork

We’re excited to announce our integration with iBTC, the decentralized wrapped BTC protocol 🫔

This integration takes Bitcoin’s utility to the next level, enabling seamless cross-chain functionality and unlocking promising DeFi trading possibilities.

Unlike centralized solutions that depend on custodial entities, iBTC uses Bitcoin's Layer 1 to ensure a secure, trustless way to wrap and unwrap Bitcoin by using Discreet Log Contracts (DLCs).

Why iBTC stands out:

✅Decentralized control: No custodians—users retain full control of their Bitcoin.
✅Strong security: Built on Taproot and FROST signatures for unmatched safety and efficiency.
✅Cross-chain interoperability: Seamlessly connects Bitcoin to Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base, and OP—soon expanding to BNB and Avalanche.
✅Theft-proof design: Bitcoin is securely locked and redeemable only by its owner.
✅Cost & speed optimization: Lower fees, faster transactions, and a smoother user experience.

With Dfns, developers can easily integrate iBTC to manage balances, execute transfers, and interact with smart contracts. Whether you're building DeFi apps, exploring cross-chain solutions, or expanding Bitcoin's utility, our APIs make it easy to integrate iBTC.

🔗Read the full blog post: https://t.co/UTPkPgISfb

[DFNS @dfnsHQ]

🆕 @ice_blockchain is available on @dfnsHQ!

We’re glad to announce that Dfns now fully supports the Ice Open Network (ION) as a Tier-1 blockchain in our Wallet-as-a-Service platform! 🎉

What makes ION special?

Built on The Open Network (TON) foundation by @telegram, ION advances the project with greater decentralization and stronger data privacy through innovative solutions such as:

🆔 ION ID for verified, privacy-first user interactions.
🔌 ION Connect to empower users over corporations.
📨 ION Liberty for secure and private content delivery.
🗃️ ION Vault for secure, decentralized data storage.

The Dfns integration unlocks full wallet and transaction capabilities for ION, including:

✅ Automatic ION token detection for effortless portfolio management.
✅ Onchain transfer history for transparent transaction tracking.
✅ Secure signature generation, asset transfers, and broadcasting—all via a single API/UI.
✅ Real-time webhook alerts for seamless updates.

Whether you’re in DeFi, payments, or tokenization, this integration makes building on ION simpler, faster, and more secure.

🔗 Read the full story: https://t.co/xNjr8cmTWW

[Otto English @Otto_English]

Tractors stopping an ambulance getting through the streets of London as they protest in favour of multimillionaires.

[Count Binface @CountBinface]

Five years ago today: Ludicrous novelty figure takes on me and Elmo.

[Cosic.be @CosicBe]

Today at @IACR_News #asiacrypt 2024 in Kolkata, India: "SQIsign2D-East: A New Signature Scheme Using 2-dimensional Isogenies"
https://t.co/JnaDsFMPBZ

[Rand @randhindi]

Over 16k people joined @zama’s discord over the last 48 hours 🤯. Clearly people care about privacy and #FHE ❤️. If you want to help build awareness of #httpz, join us: https://t.co/mvYlMxs9vM

[Rand @randhindi]

Good thing FHE is quantum resistant then

[Zama @zama]

This week, Zama is heading to Argentina for @crecimientoar Aleph Pop-Up City! We'll introduce the Zama FHE State OS, our vision on how FHE can serve as a foundational building block for network states. Meetup, workshop, and hackathon!
Register here: https://t.co/BjZIcMdVgs