Elliptic curves and SNARKs: past, present and future. by Youssef El Housni | Devcon SEA

Thu, Oct 2, 2025, 12:00 AM

Elliptic curves are used in many proof systems. Some systems (e.g. Bulletproofs) use plain curves (e.g. ed25519). Some (e.g. Groth16, KZG-PLONK) use pairing-friendly curves (e.g. BLS12-381). Some recursive systems require pairing-friendly 2-cycle (e.g. MNT4/6) or 2-chains (e.g. BLS12-377/BW6-761). Some other recursive/folding systems require plain 2-cycle (e.g. Pasta). In this talk we will go through the difference between these curves and why there isn't a silver bullet curve for all scenarios. Speaker(s): Youssef El Housni Skill level: Intermediate Track: Applied Cryptography Keywords: ZKP, Cryptography, SNARK, elliptic, curves Follow us: https://twitter.com/efdevcon, https://twitter.com/ethereum, https://warpcast.com/devcon Learn more about devcon: https://www.devcon.org/ Learn more about ethereum: https://ethereum.org/ Visit the https://archive.devcon.org/ to gain access to the entire library of Devcon talks with the ease of filtering, playlists, personalized suggestions, decentralized access on Swarm, IPFS and more. Devcon is the Ethereum conference for developers, researchers, thinkers, and makers. Devcon SEA was held in Bangkok, Thailand on Nov 12 - Nov 15, 2024. Devcon is organized and presented by the Ethereum Foundation. To find out more, please visit https://ethereum.foundation/