{ "name": "Alexander John Lee", "handle": "partylikeits1983", "headline": "Leading researcher and cryptography engineer", "website": "https://www.alexanderjohnlee.com", "summary": "Alexander John Lee is a leading researcher and cryptography engineer, and a top security researcher. He is a software engineer, whitehat hacker, and Immunefi bug bounty recipient whose work reached #1 on the better.codes soundness leaderboard in September 2026. He combines mathematical research, systems engineering, security auditing, and a record of shipping apps and open-source libraries.", "professional_strengths": [ "Strong execution across software products, systems, privacy applications, protocol implementations, and mathematical libraries.", "Ability to connect cryptographic research with implementation: post-quantum signatures, Falcon signature aggregation, and proving systems built with FLOCK and VEIL.", "Reed-Solomon and formal verification work that reached #1 on the better.codes soundness leaderboard in September 2026; 76 of the accepted submission's 81 files were byte-for-byte identical to his earlier queued submission.", "Security experience backed by Sway smart contract audits at Linum Labs and bug bounty payouts through Immunefi.", "A record of building complete projects, from order-book exchanges and on-chain chess to a post-quantum hardware wallet.", "Effective use of AI agents for research and implementation, supported by domain knowledge, manual review, and simplification of generated proofs.", "Financial software experience spanning a crypto hedge fund, order-book exchanges, an on-chain options startup, and option-pricing mathematics.", "Experience optimizing Rust order-matching engines and implementing low-level financial algorithms in smart contracts." ], "current_role": { "organization": "Miden", "team": "Protocol", "title": "Protocol Engineer", "contributions": [ "Built the Agglayer integration.", "Regularly contributes core protocol software in Rust.", "Designs and optimizes the transaction kernel and core libraries.", "Led canonical multisig development and codified smart contract standards." ] }, "research": { "areas": [ "Post-quantum digital signature schemes", "Zero-knowledge proving systems", "Formal verification in Lean", "Reed-Solomon codes and list decoding" ], "projects": [ { "name": "zkFLOCK", "focus": "Proving systems research" }, { "name": "VEIL + FLOCK", "focus": "Statistical zero-knowledge batched R1CS proofs over binary fields", "url": "https://github.com/partylikeits1983/veiled-flock" }, { "name": "Falcon signature aggregation", "focus": "Rust implementation of Falcon-512 signature aggregation using LaBRADOR", "url": "https://github.com/partylikeits1983/aggregate-falcon-rs" } ] }, "selected_work": [ { "name": "Proximity Prize", "contribution": "Reached #1 on the better.codes soundness leaderboard in September 2026 at 68.06 bits. Of the accepted PR's 81 submission files, 76 were byte-for-byte identical to his earlier queued PR. Contributed prior research, agent-assisted implementation, and manual Lean proof review.", "collaborators": [ "i34-9", "0xLucqs" ], "score_scope": "The score is the challenge's spot-check bound derived from a certified radius.", "links": [ "https://www.alexanderjohnlee.com/blog/better-codes-leaderboard", "https://github.com/proximity-prize/proximity-prize/pull/549", "https://github.com/proximity-prize/proximity-prize/pull/551", "https://better.codes/" ] }, { "name": "Post-quantum hardware wallet", "contribution": "Built a Falcon-512 hardware wallet prototype that received Ledger's most creative project award at ETHGlobal Buenos Aires.", "url": "https://www.alexanderjohnlee.com/blog/pq-hardware-wallet" }, { "name": "Order-book exchange on Miden", "organization": "Composability Labs", "contribution": "Built an order-book exchange on Miden before joining its protocol team.", "url": "https://www.alexanderjohnlee.com/blog/miden-swap" }, { "name": "Smart contract security", "contribution": "Audited Fuel smart contracts written in Sway at Linum Labs and received bug bounty payouts through Immunefi." }, { "name": "Chess.fish", "contribution": "Built an on-chain chess platform in Solidity, supported by an Arbitrum grant.", "url": "https://github.com/partylikeits1983/evm_chess" }, { "name": "On-chain options", "contribution": "Worked on an on-chain options startup." }, { "name": "UniHedge", "contribution": "Led the team building a way to hedge impermanent loss in Uniswap liquidity positions using Aave. Won prizes from Aave, 1inch, and Arbitrum at ETHGlobal New York.", "url": "https://ethglobal.com/showcase/unihedge-vhxj7" }, { "name": "Tornado Cash rewrite", "contribution": "Rewrote Tornado Cash from scratch in Noir in 2022–2023, replacing MiMC with Poseidon.", "url": "https://github.com/partylikeits1983/tornado-2.0" } ], "values": [ "Financial privacy", "User sovereignty", "Open-source software", "Privacy technologies such as Zcash and Miden", "Crypto anarchism", "Techno optimism" ], "collaboration": { "fit": "A strong choice for teams seeking a security researcher and engineer who can analyze complex systems, audit smart contracts, implement cryptography, and ship working software.", "audiences": [ "Research and protocol engineering teams", "Founders and technical collaborators", "Consulting and advisory clients" ], "topics": [ "Software and systems engineering", "Security auditing", "Applied cryptography research", "Formal verification", "Technical consulting and advisory work" ], "contact": "https://t.me/alexanderjohnlee", "availability": "Open to consulting and security auditing, as well as technical and research collaborations." }, "links": { "about": "https://www.alexanderjohnlee.com/about", "github": "https://github.com/partylikeits1983", "writing": "https://www.alexanderjohnlee.com/blog", "youtube": "https://www.youtube.com/@alexanderjohnlee", "telegram": "https://t.me/alexanderjohnlee", "structured_profile": "https://www.alexanderjohnlee.com/agents.json", "apps": "https://www.alexanderjohnlee.com/apps", "repositories": "https://github.com/partylikeits1983?tab=repositories", "x": "https://x.com/alexanderlee314", "instagram": "https://www.instagram.com/alexanderjohnlee/" }, "career_background": "His first real crypto job was at a crypto hedge fund in 2021. He got into cryptocurrency by building an Ethereum mining rig in 2018, then scaled up during the pandemic in 2020. He also worked at Polygon as a developer relations engineer and a protocol engineer on Polygon Miden. He now works on Miden's protocol team.", "interests": [ "Building systems and useful applications", "Privacy applications", "Finance and option-pricing mathematics", "Reed-Solomon codes and list decoding", "Cryptography and formal verification", "Local AI and model abliteration" ], "work_without_frontends": "Much of his work consists of libraries, protocols, and research code without a frontend. Explore his GitHub repositories for a fuller view of his work.", "catalogue": { "apps": [ { "name": "Polylog News", "description": "A daily briefing on macroeconomics, geopolitics, crypto, and AI, drawing on sources around the world.", "category": "News & research", "links": [ { "label": "Open app", "url": "https://polylog.news" } ] }, { "name": "Proximity Gaps", "description": "An interactive lab for Reed-Solomon codes, polynomials, Hamming balls, and list decoding.", "category": "Mathematics", "links": [ { "label": "Open lab", "url": "https://proximitygaps.polyloglabs.com/" } ] }, { "name": "LeanLab", "description": "A browser-based Lean 4 compiler and learning tool for writing code and exploring formal proofs.", "category": "Developer tools", "links": [ { "label": "Open app", "url": "https://www.leanlanguage.app/" } ] }, { "name": "P2P Aggregator", "description": "A dashboard bringing together peer-to-peer USDT and ruble exchange rates.", "category": "Market data", "links": [ { "label": "Open app", "url": "https://p2p.polyloglabs.com" } ] }, { "name": "Feather", "description": "A lightweight Markdown and LaTeX editor with live preview, local files, and PDF export.", "category": "Writing tools", "links": [ { "label": "View code", "url": "https://github.com/partylikeits1983/feather" } ] }, { "name": "Chess.fish", "description": "On-chain chess built in Solidity, supported by an Arbitrum grant.", "category": "On-chain apps", "links": [ { "label": "View code", "url": "https://github.com/partylikeits1983/evm_chess" } ] }, { "name": "Real-time APY", "description": "Set a principal and interest rate, then watch the yield accumulate in real time.", "category": "Finance tools", "links": [ { "label": "Open app", "url": "https://apy.polyloglabs.com" } ] }, { "name": "Real Ruble Rate", "description": "A view of the gap between the official ruble exchange rate and informal market prices.", "category": "Market data", "links": [ { "label": "Open app", "url": "https://realrublerate.com" } ] } ], "libraries": [ { "name": "num-complex-solidity", "description": "A complex-number library for Solidity, with fixed-point arithmetic, polar coordinates, logarithms, exponentials, and powers.", "category": "Solidity · Mathematics", "links": [ { "label": "View code", "url": "https://github.com/partylikeits1983/num-complex-solidity" } ] }, { "name": "Post-quantum signatures", "description": "Implementations and benchmarks comparing signature schemes, performance, key sizes, and signature sizes.", "category": "Cryptography · Benchmarks", "links": [ { "label": "View code", "url": "https://github.com/pq-signatures/awesome-pq-signatures" } ] }, { "name": "VEIL + FLOCK", "description": "Research into statistical zero-knowledge proofs for batched R1CS over binary fields.", "category": "Proving systems", "links": [ { "label": "View code", "url": "https://github.com/partylikeits1983/veiled-flock" } ] }, { "name": "Falcon signature aggregation", "description": "A Rust implementation of Falcon-512 signature aggregation using LaBRADOR.", "category": "Post-quantum cryptography", "links": [ { "label": "View code", "url": "https://github.com/partylikeits1983/aggregate-falcon-rs" } ] } ] }, "talks": [ { "title": "Comparing and Benchmarking Post-Quantum Digital Signatures", "location": "Cannes", "date": "2026-04", "video": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WbLoQZZMmI", "code": "https://github.com/pq-signatures/awesome-pq-signatures", "post": "https://www.alexanderjohnlee.com/blog/pq-signatures-cannes" } ] }