jayendra madaram
applied cryptography / privacy systems / open source
I'm Jayendra. I build privacy infrastructure and applied cryptography systems. I think a lot about how to make private computation practical for real people and real financial systems.
I'm the founder and lead engineer at Hisoka, where we're building a full-stack privacy protocol for blockchains and decentralized finance. The protocol spans four layers: a shielded UTXO darkpool with threshold compliance for selective regulatory disclosure, a Sphinx-based mix network for metadata privacy, Private Information Retrieval for query-level anonymity, and DeFi adaptor contracts for private interactions with on-chain protocols. We're also actively working on private solving, private orderbooks, private state services backed by TEEs, and cross-chain privacy via threshold signatures.
I'm a twice national-level taekwondo player. I studied computer science at Neil Gogte Institute of Technology in Hyderabad. Based in India.
Hisoka is a compliant-by-design privacy protocol for decentralized finance. The core is a ZK-UTXO darkpool where every note is encrypted on-chain with a threshold encryption scheme: users can always decrypt their own notes, but a distributed compliance quorum can also perform selective disclosure under legal authority. No single party can unilaterally break privacy. This is different from protocols like Tornado Cash, which offer no compliance path and end up getting sanctioned.
The protocol includes eight zero-knowledge circuits written in Noir (deposit, withdraw, transfer, split, join, public claim, gas payment, and uniswap intent) verified on-chain using UltraHonk proofs. Users interact with DeFi through adaptor contracts that bind ZK proofs to specific intents, preventing parameter hijacking by relayers. We support three adaptor patterns: stateless (Uniswap-style swaps), stateful (perpetuals and lending), and factory-based (one-time proxy accounts for solvers and aggregators).
I built NOX, the protocol's mixnet layer, a Loopix-style Sphinx mix network in Rust. It provides network-level anonymity so that even if the darkpool hides what you do on-chain, your IP address and timing patterns don't leak who you are. NOX includes an anonymous gas payment protocol where users pay relayers through ZK proofs without linking their wallet to their network identity. I wrote a research paper on it.
We built Raven, a Private Information Retrieval service using ChalametPIR (lattice-based PIR built on LWE and binary fuse filters), so users can look up their encrypted notes without the server learning which notes they own. We're also exploring YPIR as a higher-throughput alternative and researching TEE-based private state services using ORAM for mobile wallet scalability.
The protocol is live on Arbitrum Sepolia with a 10-node testnet, 13 verified smart contracts, a TypeScript/WASM client SDK, an operator CLI, and a blockchain indexer for the node registry.
Summer of Bitcoin is a global program with over 5,000 applicants. I was selected after passing a learning phase on Bitcoin internals (Taproot, SegWit, transaction structures, PoW consensus) and building a mini Bitcoin miner in Go that scored 110/100. I chose to work on Braidpool, a decentralized mining pool that uses a DAG-based layer-1 blockchain for share accounting and payouts.
My work focused on implementing the UHPO (Unspent Hasher PayOut) transaction mechanism in Rust, which rewards miners proportionally and allows unilateral cashout without pool operator permission. I built three transaction types (Coinbase, Payout Update, Payout Settlement), contributed to the official Bitcoin-DSL repository, wrote a comprehensive specification document, and developed the full Rust crate with unit and integration tests.
Focused on applied cryptography for decentralized exchange infrastructure. Built threshold signature systems using the FROST protocol, implemented signature schemes and encryption standards, and worked on orderbook mechanics and market maker algorithms. Specialized in zero-knowledge protocols across Ethereum, Bitcoin, and Solana.
Built scalable applications and microservice architecture for a medtech company. Worked with DICOM medical imaging files, Python Flask backends, MongoDB, and server-rendered web apps in Next.js and TypeScript.
Led data engineering for an e-commerce store. Built data pipelines and custom tooling for real-time inventory management, automated Shopify workflows, and worked extensively with GraphQL and web scraping.
Automation engineering. Built custom bots, scrapers, and tooling using Selenium, PyAutoGUI, and various APIs.
The things that excite me most right now: Private Information Retrieval, garbled circuits, functional encryption, zero-knowledge proof systems, and fully homomorphic encryption. I'm actively researching and building on top of these primitives, especially in the context of making private computation practical for financial infrastructure.
I'm particularly interested in how programmable cryptography (ZK, MPC, FHE, TEEs) can be composed to build privacy systems where the privacy guarantees are cryptographic, not policy-based. The compliance question matters too: how do you build systems that are private by default but can support selective disclosure under legitimate legal authority without introducing a trusted third party?
Other things: I've been a twice national-level taekwondo player. Certified Ethereum developer. Placed 2nd at Megathon (30+ teams) building an end-to-end AI platform for remote rural healthcare diagnosis.