Mario Yaksetig
Cryptographer
Advancing the field of cryptography through innovative research and practical applications.
About Me
I am an applied cryptographer. I do design and analysis of cryptographic protocols. I am one of the creators of quantum-secure fallbacks (i.e., the ability to hide a quantum-secure key 'inside' a regular ECC key-pair).
My MSc advisor was professor Alan T. Sherman, notable student of the cryptography icon Ron Rivest.
My L2 work has been cited by Vitalik Buterin. I have also broken a post-quantum signature scheme proposed by Vitalik. Additionally, I have co-authored with Bart Preneel, one of the creators of one of the hash functions used in Bitcoin.
I worked with David Chaum, the "godfather of crypto", for a couple of years. I have also worked with Neal Stephenson, the one who coined the term 'metaverse'.
Lately, I have been working on implementing and validating cryptographic protocols in the blockchain space.
My research interests include:
My research has been funded by:
Publications
Intmax2: A ZK-rollup with Minimal Onchain Data and Computation Costs Featuring Decentralized Aggregators
CoDecFin Workshop at FC 2025
Signer Discretion is Advised: On the Insecurity of Vitalik's Threshold Hash-based Signatures
ACM CCS (Poster Track), 2023
Formal Methods Analysis of the Secure Remote Password Protocol
Logic, Language, and Security (LNCS 12300), 2020
Memberships
- International Association for Cryptologic Research (IACR)
- Cayman Islands Virtual Asset Society (CIVAS)
- Cayman Islands Director Association (CIDA)
- International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation (IBJJF) Athlete
My Portfolio
401 Systems
A toolkit for secure multi-party computation with applications in privacy-preserving data analysis.
Repo to txt
Convert a public GitHub URL into a .txt file to use as context for an LLM (e.g., Claude).
Professional Experience
Co-Founder, Director, and Cryptographer
BitFashioned SEZC
BitFashioned is a Web3 boutique dev shop that helps clients scale from 0 to a real-world scalable MVP.
Subject Matter Expert
State of Wyoming
Advised the State of Wyoming on their novel stable token.
Head of Research
Parfin
Designed a novel privacy solution tested by the Brazil Central Bank for their digital currency (DREX) pilot.
Cryptographer
Lamina1
Worked with Neal Stephenson, creator of the term 'Metaverse' and author of Snowcrash.
Cryptography Advisor
Intmax
Assisted with the technical paper. This work was cited by Vitalik Buterin (one of the creators of Ethereum).
Technical Advisor
Bank for International Settlements
Advised the BISIH with Project Tourbillon, a retail CBDC project that explored privacy, quantum security, and no programmability.
Cryptographyer
xx network
Hired by David Chaum, creator of digital cash. I helped develop & analyze security protocols in the blockchain space.
Graduate Cryptography Researcher
University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)
Privacy researcher in UMBC's Cyber Defense Lab. I was advised by Professor Alan Sherman and Professor Manuel Barbosa.