Smart Vaults™, the Layer 2 Protocol we developed, is fundamentally a security protocol similar to SSL – Secure Socket Layer, PGP – Pretty Good Privacy, etc. and we need a rigorous analysis of various scenarios and edge cases to pragmatically and deterministically prove that it is the safest and most secure option available for Crypto Custody as of date.
But this is easier said than done! We need to dissect the protocol into constructs that were previously analyzed in research papers by well-respected academicians and then derive the proofs we need from them.
To begin with, none of us are from an academic background and we do not speak the language of hypotheses, axioms, derivations, and proofs! All we could infer from the way the protocol worked is that we use a form of Zero Knowledge Proofs to decide which private-keys were lost or stolen and activate other available options to safeguard the said Bitcoin.
Realizing the importance of having formal proofs to make inroads into this industry, we started chasing Dr. Ittay Eyal who has full knowledge of the protocol and the solution to work on the same!
Even Dr. Eyal needed to flex his mental muscles to create a formal framework representing our Layer 2 protocol and it took a few years to come up with the right constructs and find the right team for this endeavor.
Finally, Dr. Eyal cracked it by joining hands with Dr. D Maram (Cornell University) and Dr. M Kelkar (Cornell University). The trio published a research paper (peer-reviewed), Interactive Multi-Credential Authentication, that formally and rigorously analyzes our protocol and similar constructs and methodically proves that these constructs provide maximal security for Bitcoin custody.
To be honest, most of it went over my head!
Update: This paper has been accepted for presentation at The 31st ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS) 2024 (Salt Lake City – Oct 14-18)
PS: This blog post has been updated several times through 2023 and 2024!
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