Paper 2025/1085
SmallWood: Hash-Based Polynomial Commitments and Zero-Knowledge Arguments for Relatively Small Instances
Abstract
Zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) are a fundamental building block in cryptography, enabling powerful privacy-preserving and verifiable computations. In the post-quantum era, hash-based ZKPs have emerged as a promising direction due to their conjectured resistance to quantum attacks, along with their simplicity and efficiency.
In this work, we introduce SmallWood, a hash-based polynomial commitment scheme (PCS) and zero-knowledge argument system optimized for relatively small instances. Building on the recent degree-enforcing commitment scheme (DECS) from the Threshold-Computation-in-the-Head (TCitH) framework, we refine its formalization and combine it with techniques from Brakedown. This results in a new hash-based PCS that is particularly efficient for polynomials of relatively small degree —typically up to
Note: An earlier version of this work appeared in https://eprint.iacr.org/2025/061. We have since extracted and expanded it into a standalone paper.
Metadata
- Available format(s)
-
PDF
- Category
- Cryptographic protocols
- Publication info
- Preprint.
- Keywords
- Zero-knowledge argumentsPolynomial commitment schemesHash-based proof systemsPost-quantum cryptography
- Contact author(s)
-
thibauld feneuil @ cryptoexperts com
matthieu rivain @ cryptoexperts com - History
- 2025-06-10: approved
- 2025-06-09: received
- See all versions
- Short URL
- https://ia.cr/2025/1085
- License
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CC BY
BibTeX
@misc{cryptoeprint:2025/1085, author = {Thibauld Feneuil and Matthieu Rivain}, title = {{SmallWood}: Hash-Based Polynomial Commitments and Zero-Knowledge Arguments for Relatively Small Instances}, howpublished = {Cryptology {ePrint} Archive, Paper 2025/1085}, year = {2025}, url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2025/1085} }