# Universal ECCs: Use Cases for the P256 Precompile in Decentralized Internet Infrastructure

- Speakers: [estmcmxci.eth](https://streameth.org/speakers/estmcmxci-eth)
- Channel: [Devcon 7 SEA](https://streameth.org/devcon_7_sea)
- Date: 2024-11-13
- Duration: 08:42
- Watch: https://streameth.org/watch/67341e6c9dbb7a90e1685ea7

## Description

## Summary

The session will highlight the history of adoption of P256 in Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC), its current applications in web security, authentication, and encryption, and explore future possibilities for its integration into Ethereum and ENS to enhance decentralized internet infrastructure.

## About the speakers

### estmcmxci.eth

## About estmcmxci.eth:

- Meta-governance steward at ENS DAO
- Researching P256 precompile support in the EVM and broader decentralized technology
- Supports subsidization of apps generated from protocol fees and other open-source infrastructure


## Transcript

Okay, for those who don't, you should definitely get one today. Meet me at the Enos booth and I'll help you out with that. And how many of you guys have more than one login across different platforms, like your bank accounts, social media, etc., etc. Yeah, I do too, pretty much everyone. So basically what I'm trying to do today is convince you that a single login is much more effective and much more useful than various ones, obviously, right? The problem is that for those of you that don't know, there might be a security concern with the P256 precompile. And I'm not going to get into the technical details of that today. I'm just going to try to plant a seed in your head and ask you to consider implementing this in the EVM. If you are a core dev, if you meet up at the ACD calls, please take this into consideration. So let's begin. So the problem is digifrenia. What is this? This is a term coined by Douglas Rushkoff. And essentially, it's the feeling of having your identity fragmented across different platforms. And this kind of leads to a lot of tension, like internal tension, a lot of anxiety, a lot of anger, depression. And, you know know this is a endemic to our terminally online generation right so we really want to find a way how to alleviate it and I'm personally not of the opinion that we should be taking over you know drugs or anything like that to do that there's a more simple solution, right? Again, when you have your identity fragmented across different platforms, it leads to serotonin and dopamine deficiencies, which leads to all these like really bad things. And you do really bad things once you feel really bad, right? So fragmented identities are bad for your health. And so what can we do about this, right? So what I'm proposing today is an idea, right? A hypothesis for a unified identity framework. And so what this means is to have more sovereignty, more control, and more self-empowerment over your identity online across different platforms. And I'm not just talking about Ethereum. I'm talking about the entire internet, right? And ENS serves as a bridge from Web3 to Web2, but there is a blocker, right? Before we get to that, just want to reiterate that having a unified identity across different platforms would lessen the tension that we are all experiencing today as a terminally online generation, right? So universal logins with ENS, right? For those of you who are familiar, you probably connect your wallet and have your ENS set up and you can receive and send payments with your ENS. It makes it super easy, delightful user experience. But I personally would love to, for example, log into my Chase account with an ENS name. I'd love to pay my bills with my ENS name. I'd love to apply to college with my ENS name. I'd love to do everything with my ENS name. And that's not possible today because the P256 precompile is not currently implemented in the EVM. And there was an EIP, EIP-7212, that was under consideration that eventually became a roll-up improvement proposal, and that's been implemented across different L2s. But essentially, the path of 1 billion is actually much easier than we are led to believe. It's actually already there. We just need to make this consideration of integrating the P256 precompile into the L1. Yeah, so that's pretty much it. Just a seed, something for you guys to think about for the rest of your day. Here are some prompts for the Q&A if you guys want to go ahead and ask. And yeah, that's my talk. Yeah. Thank you. Questions? It's time. We've got a question, first one. Thank you. Questions? Time. We've got a question. First one. Okay. Oh. I'll try. Okay. Okay. Hey, what's your name? Hey, my name is Lance. Hey, Lance. I'm building a project called Sarray, and we use P256 verification in our project twice, one for WebAuthn and one for TLS Notary. I love that. We end up spending 600k gas total on these transactions and I was wondering why hasn't P256 been a pre-compile since the beginning? I mean it makes sense. Yeah so that's a great question. So everyone here is familiar with Edward Snowden and I believe that he's disclosed that there's a potential backdoor risk. It's a pseudo-random curve, right? So the Ethereum L1, it's a Koblitz curve, so it's deterministically conceived, whereas the P256 is a pseudo-random curve. So there's this concern that there might be a backdoor that the NSA or some other agency might have an ability to take advantage of. So that has not yet been proven, and there is evidence towards it not being a conclusive thing. But I think a lot of people here, I don't mean to offend the audience, but I think you guys might be a little paranoid. Sorry. Yeah. Next question. Next question. Okay. You got two here. I tried. I tried. I tried. Hey, what's your name? Hey, my name's Brian. I'm just playing devil's advocate here. Why can't we get the rest of the world to adopt the K curve? Pardon? Why can't we get the rest of the world to adopt 256K1? Why can't we get the rest of the world to adopt the P256 curve? The K curve. Oh, okay okay like do it the other way around yes oh man so um essentially like every uh every enterprise business has adopted this uh nist approved curve and uh you know i mean i guess we can like if we all came together and just uh kind of created a proposal to do that, but I feel like that would be like an uphill battle, in my opinion. But I mean, feel free to argue against that. Last question. Guys, let's do this. Last question. Okay, I've got a question for you. Okay, sir. So I'm from Africa, Ghana. Before L2s, Ethereum was like no-go area for most of us. I'm paying $10 for just a gas fee. What's the future in terms of making it easy for early devs who doesn't have so much to pay on gas to be able to use this seamlessly. Do you mind asking a question another way? I mean, how, in terms of future, for emerging markets like Africa, for early devs who are not in your level to be able to easily play with this particular technology that you're just discussing here? Are you asking, like, what would be the advantages of having this crypto implemented for emerging markets? I think it's just a universal thing, right? So if we're able to log in to... What's your bank account in Ghana? What's the name of your bank account? Well, I hardly go to bank now. I use crypto. Exactly. Okay. So, for example, if you're able to log in with your E&S to your bank account, it might be more easy to access versus just using crypto. Awesome. Awesome. Thank you. I mean, guys, let's give a hands-up applause for Marcus. Thanks.