Kostas Kryptos Chalkias

Kostas Kryptos Chalkias holds a PhD in identity based cryptography and he is the co-founder and Chief Cryptographer of Mysten Labs, playing a key role in the development of the Sui blockchain and the Walrus decentralized storage layer.

Previously, Kostas led Meta's cryptography team for the Libra project and worked as a senior staff researcher on various security projects, including WhatsApp. He is also the architect behind the cryptographic systems of R3's Corda blockchain. Known for his groundbreaking work in zero-knowledge proofs, Kostas is the main contributor to zkLogin OAuth crypto authentication, HashWires range proofs, and Winterfell, the first open-source STARK prover.

With over 50 scientific publications, Kostas is also a renowned white-hat hacker, having uncovered critical vulnerabilities and proposed high-quality standards for centralized crypto exchange proofs of solvency, AI-based smart contract bug detection, and practical attacks on the EdDSA and Base64 signature and encoding schemes.

A huge hackathon enthusiast, Kostas enjoys pushing the limits of innovation in fast-paced environments. His passion for blockchain extends into his personal life - he named his son Kryptos - symbolizing his belief in the transformative power of blockchain technology. His favorite motto: “The ultimate inspiration is the deadline."