SmallWood Preview

[Matthieu Rivain]

Dear Threshold Crypto Friends,

Tomorrow, during the afternoon session of the MPTS workshop, I will present SmallWood, a ZKPoK preview submission: https://csrc.nist.gov/csrc/media/Projects/threshold-cryptography/documents/TCall-1/SmallWood-PW01.pdf

SmallWood is a generic zero-knowledge proof system based only on hash functions (and thus plausibly post-quantum secure), achieving competitive proof sizes with the current state of the art in post-quantum ZKPs for "relatively small instances".

The talk will provide an overview of the SmallWood construction, which follows the widely used approach of composing a Polynomial Commitment Scheme (PCS) with a Polynomial Interactive Oracle Proof (PIOP). It will also showcase preliminary results across several applications, including arithmetic circuits, lattice-based statements, and the design of SNARK-friendly post-quantum signatures.

All the best,

Matthieu