François-Xavier Wicht

PhD student

Research statement

I’m a PhD student in the Cryptology and Data Security Group at the University of Bern. My research focuses on the privacy aspects of digital currencies.

Initially, my primary concern is the development of formal definitions to assess and compare the privacy guarantees offered by various systems. This encompasses decentralized and permissionless schemes, as well as centrally managed digital currencies. Additionally, I am committed to designing cryptosystems that can provably achieve these privacy guarantees or introduce innovative privacy properties.

Beyond the technical aspects, my research extends into interdisciplinary collaboration between cryptography and law. Ultimately, my goal is to contribute to the protection of individual freedoms while mitigating potential criminal activities in the realm of digital currencies.

Publications

1. Wicht, F.-X., Wang, Z., Le, D. V., & Cachin, C. (2023). A Transaction-Level Model for Blockchain Privacy. Cryptology ePrint Archive, Paper 2023/1902. https://eprint.iacr.org/2023/1902