Danny Willems

Post-quantum cryptography, cryptanalysis of arithmetization-oriented hash functions, formal verification of cryptographic protocols and primitives. Previously focused on SNARK-friendly primitives based on elliptic curves, SNARK implementations, and incrementally verifiable computation.

o1Labs incubated the Mina Protocol, a layer-1 blockchain using zero-knowledge proofs for succinctness.

• Oversaw cryptography architecture across a 15-20 person engineering team as Head of Cryptography.
• Led a team of up to 5 engineers on the full rewrite of the Mina node from OCaml to Rust.
• Contributed to Kimchi (custom gates, lookups) and Pickles (recursion layer based on Halo2).
• Contributed to o1js, the TypeScript SDK for writing zkApps.
• Co-designed o1VM, a zkVM for MIPS. Built the RISC-V interpreter and folding layer, low-level optimizations for witness generation (see talks below).
• Designed Arrabbiata, a folding scheme for arbitrary custom gates and degrees.

Cryptography team at Nomadic Labs (Tezos blockchain).

• Co-authored the Anemoi/Jive paper on AO hash functions for PlonK. Implementation and CPU optimizations.
• Co-authored PlonK optimizations paper. Implementation.
• Built ocaml-bls12-381: pairing operations, BLS signatures, hash functions over BLS12-381.
• Contributed to Plompiler, a monadic DSL for aPlonK circuits.
• Worked on Epoxy, a validity rollup for Tezos.
• Contributed to the Tezos protocol (Octez).
• Enrolled at IPP for a PhD on SNARK-friendly elliptic curve primitives (supervisor: Benjamin Smith, INRIA). Discontinued to join o1Labs.

First engineer at B2C2, an early institutional crypto liquidity provider (acquired by SBI Holdings in 2020).

• Built and operated blockchain nodes across multiple chains for real-time transaction monitoring.
• Contributed to real-time crypto/fiat accounting with PnL detection, integrated with the risk system.
• Managed full lifecycle: infrastructure, development, releases.

Personal mathematics research boutique founded in 2020, bridging abstract mathematics and concrete applications. Independent research, consulting, and engineering for protocol design, cryptography library development, and security auditing.

• Papyrus: pipeline to extract and formally verify cryptographic knowledge from research papers.
• cryptography.academy: web frontend for Papyrus, presenting verified cryptographic knowledge in a searchable interface.
• LeakIX: co-founded attack surface management platform serving 100+ clients and multiple national CERTs.

Co-founded with Gregory Boddin. Attack surface management platform serving 100+ clients and multiple national CERTs.

• Search engine indexing public information by scanning the Internet, combined with an open vulnerability disclosure platform.
• Preemptive security: free incident reports for affected parties, no sales attempts on reported incidents.

Topic: SNARK-friendly primitives based on elliptic curves. Under the direction of Benjamin Smith (INRIA, Ecole Polytechnique). Discontinued to join o1Labs.

Grade: Summa Cum Laude

Bachelor degree: minor in Physics. Awarded with the prize of the Mathematics Department.

Piscine C in July 2014, joined in 2015. Stopped 1 year after to focus on master degree in mathematics at UMONS.