Zero Knowledge The Quest for Practical iO with Machina iO
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Nov 12, 2025 Sora Suegami and Enrico Bottazzi from the Makina.io team at the Ethereum Foundation are pioneering indistinguishability obfuscation (iO) technology. They dive into their journey studying iO’s potential for smart-contract privacy and the challenges of making it practical. Topics include the innovative use of lattice assumptions, conditional decryption in real-world applications, and optimization strategies for efficient obfuscation. With insights on benchmarks and security proofs, they shed light on the future of cryptographic privacy.
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iO Is Transformative But Still Theoretical
- Indistinguishability obfuscation (iO) makes equivalent programs appear identical once obfuscated.
- iO is still theoretical but Makina.io treats practicality as an engineering challenge, not a mystical dream.
Discovery Via A Wired Article
- Sora discovered iO via a Wired article about the 2021 standard-assumption iO paper and was immediately fascinated.
- She had background in blockchain and ZKP and saw iO as an ideal solution to avoid ad-hoc trusted committees.
Practical Frustration Led To iO
- Enrico came to iO from practical application work on multilateral credit set-off and frustrations with committee-based FHE solutions.
- He joined Sora to explore iO as a way to avoid small trusted committees and improve privacy for real-world apps.