Cryptographic technologies such as encryption and authentication provide stability to modern electronic commerce. Recent technologies such as Bitcoin have the potential to further enhance the way we conduct electronic commerce. In this talk, I will describe my work in developing a robust theory of privacy-preserving contracts that are self-enforcing and do not require third-party intervention. Starting from Bitcoin-inspired abstractions, the theory enables building provably secure and scalable applications on top of cryptocurrencies.

Ranjit Kumaresan is currently a postdoc at MIT CSAIL. Previously he was a postdoc at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland. His research interests are in cryptography, security, privacy, and theory of computation.