I am a research scientist at Babylon Labs. I completed my PhD in computer science at Yale University in May 2026, advised by Ben Fisch. Previously, I worked with Alessandro Chiesa at UC Berkeley and with Mary Maller at UCL. My research focuses on efficient constructions of cryptographic proof systems, spanning succinct zero-knowledge proofs, signatures, and applications, with publications at CRYPTO, EUROCRYPT, and ASIACRYPT. I am a co-author of Marlin and ripp in the arkworks ecosystem, and my work has been deployed in production systems including Filecoin, Celo, Aleo, Polkadot, and Horizen.
Before graduate school, I was a security engineer at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, where I was a core developer of SecureDrop.
Preprints & Submissions
Zinc+: SNARKs for Polynomial Rings
Alexander Abdugafarov, Albert Garreta, Amit Kumar, Michał Osadnik, Psi Vesely, Ilia Vlasov, Kai Zhe Zheng
ZKProof 8
Standard SNARK arithmetization inflates witness-size by orders of magnitude for non-native operations including symmetric hashing and encryption, modular arithmetic, and lattice-ring operations. Zinc+ largely eliminates this overhead. We introduce Universal Constraint Systems (UCS), a new arithmetization expressing constraints over Q[X], Z[X], and multiple Fq[X] simultaneously, with novel ideal membership constraints. Our compiler lifts standard finite-field PIOPs to a PIOP for UCS. We then introduce Zip+, a hash-based PCS framework that builds polynomial commitments for Fq[X] from any PCS for Fq, and for Q[X] from a novel tensor IOPP. We further introduce Integer Pseudo-Reed-Solomon codes, a new family of MDS codes over Q with minimal encoded coefficient growth. Our unoptimized implementation proves 7 SHA-256 compressions + ECDSA verification in 37ms on a laptop. Deployable as a lightweight add-on to existing hash-based SNARKs.
Efficient Hash- and Lattice-Based Proof Systems for Mixed Algebras
Psi Vesely
PhD Dissertation, Yale University, 2026
In addition to work appearing in other publications listed here, introduces RingSpartan, a polynomial interactive oracle proof that seamlessly mixes cyclotomic ring and base field arithmetic over both NTT and power basis representations, avoiding the circuit blowup of NTT unrolling and the costly quotient commitments of Galois-ring projection. Enables efficient in-circuit SWIFFT hashing over fields like BabyBear and Goldilocks, offering lattice-hardness security as an alternative to algebraic hashes like Poseidon. Compiled with Microlotus, a polynomial commitment scheme for the small base fields used in lattice cryptography, instantiating Basefold with random foldable codes and an odd-prime field tower for Binius-style packing.
Orbweaver: Succinct Linear Functional Commitments from Lattices
Ben Fisch, Zeyu Liu, Psi Vesely
CRYPTO 2023
The first post-quantum functional/polynomial commitment to achieve O(log n) proof size and a sub-O(log2 n) verifier. Enables evaluation of linear functions and polynomials on committed vectors over cyclotomic rings and the integers. Preprocessing, inherently non-interactive, and structure-preserving (all making it recursion friendly). Supports logarithmic public proof aggregation.
A consensus-agnostic methodology for constructing ultralight clients via SNARK-based state transition proofs. Introduces a BLS-based offline aggregate multisignature scheme (where signers need not know their group in advance) and a SNARK-friendly composite algebraic-symmetric hash function. Deployed by Celo.
Proofs for Inner Pairing Products and Applications
Benedikt Bünz, Mary Maller, Pratyush Mishra, Nirvan Tyagi, Psi Vesely
ASIACRYPT 2021 · zkSummit 5
A generalized inner product argument for any bilinear map, applied to pairing-based languages. Yields the first polynomial commitment with succinct (logarithmic) verification and O(√n) prover complexity for evaluation proofs, the first concretely efficient protocol for aggregating Groth16 proofs without recursion, and a low-memory SNARK with significantly faster proving. Deployed in SnarkPack (Filecoin) and GRANDPA (Polkadot).
Marlin: Preprocessing zkSNARKs with Universal and Updatable SRS
Alessandro Chiesa, Yuncong Hu, Mary Maller, Pratyush Mishra, Psi Vesely, Nicholas Ward
EUROCRYPT 2020
A methodology for constructing preprocessing zkSNARKs where the structured reference string is universal and updatable, via a novel use of holographic IOPs. Achieves an order-of-magnitude improvement in proving time and 3× faster verification over the prior state of the art, with smaller SRS and argument size. Deployed in AleoVM and Zendoo (Horizen).
Designed and shipped Plumo, the ultralight client for the Celo blockchain, using SNARKs and new circuit-friendly signatures and hashes. Helped design privacy-preserving contact discovery and private transaction comments.
Research Assistant · University of California, Berkeley, –
Clients and projects included Spin Research, Camelids, sodiumoxide, Data Cívica, and Human Rights Data Analysis Group.
Security Engineer · Freedom of the Press Foundation, –
Core developer of SecureDrop, the open-source whistleblower submission platform. Built a machine learning system to evaluate website fingerprinting attacks on Tor onion services; led Tor developer conference sessions on the topic.
