Cryptography
Deep-dives into the maths that secures the internet: hash functions, digital signatures, the SHA family and the SHAttered collision that gave this site its name. Explainers and reporting for people who want to understand how the primitives actually work.
ECDSA vs Schnorr: MuSig2 Cuts Multisig Bytes 45% [2026]
Bitcoin ran on one signature scheme for twelve years. Then, in November 2021, the Taproot upgrade quietly swapped in a second one, and by 2026 that second scheme…
SLH-DSA vs ML-DSA: 3.2x Bigger Sigs, 95x Slower [2026]
NIST finalized two post-quantum signature standards on the same day in August 2024, and that decision still confuses engineers picking a signature scheme in 2026. ML-DSA (FIPS 204,…
Groth16 vs PLONK: 192-Byte Proofs, 300K Gas Cost [2026]
Every zk-rollup team building on Ethereum in 2026 eventually hits the same fork in the road: Groth16 or PLONK. Both are zk-SNARK proving systems, both let a prover…
Bulletproofs vs zk-STARKs: 672B vs 45KB Proofs [2026]
Two privacy coins and a dozen Ethereum rollups are betting on completely different math to prove things without revealing them. Monero has leaned on Bulletproofs since 2018. StarkNet,…
Bulletproofs vs zk-SNARKs: 672 vs 192-Byte Proofs [2026]
Two of the most-used privacy coins on the market solve the same problem, hiding transaction amounts and identities, with completely different math. Monero uses Bulletproofs. Zcash uses zk-SNARKs.…
RSA vs Diffie-Hellman: TLS 1.3 Keeps Only One [2026]
Every HTTPS connection you open, every SSH session you start, and every VPN tunnel your laptop builds has to solve the same problem first: two strangers need to…
secp256k1 vs P-256: 30% Faster, No Secure Enclave [2026]
Every time someone taps “Sign in with Face ID” on a passkey-protected site, their phone reaches for a curve called secp256r1, better known as NIST P-256. Every time…
AES-GCM vs AES-CBC: 4x Faster, No Padding Oracle [2026]
Open the TLS cipher suite list in any modern browser and you will find AES-GCM everywhere and AES-CBC almost nowhere. That split did not happen by accident. AES-CBC…
ML-KEM vs Classic McEliece: 300x Bigger Keys [2026]
NIST finished the first phase of its post-quantum cryptography rollout in 2024 by finalizing ML-KEM, the lattice-based scheme now known as FIPS 203. But quietly, on the other…
Ed25519 vs ECDSA: 2x Faster Signing, No Nonce Risk [2026]
Pick the wrong signature algorithm for a new SSH fleet, TLS deployment, or blockchain wallet in 2026 and you’re stuck rotating keys across thousands of endpoints two years…
