Avatar

Youssef El Housni

Staff Cryptography Researcher at Consensys (USA)

Consensys

Linea

About

I am a Staff Cryptography Researcher at Consensys, where I work at the intersection of cryptographic research and high-performance engineering. I’m a developer and maintainer of gnark and gnark-crypto, an open-source Go ecosystem for zero-knowledge proofs and cryptographic primitives. I am also a founding member and developer of Linea, an Ethereum-equivalent Layer 2.

I received my PhD in Mathematics and Computer Science from École Polytechnique in France, where I was advised by François Morain, Daniel Augot, and later Aurore Guillevic.

My research sits at the intersection of algorithmic number theory and zero-knowledge proofs, with a particular interest in elliptic curves, finite fields, bilinear pairings, and the arithmetic underlying efficient SNARKs. I like turning mathematical ideas into cryptography that is fast enough to matter in practice.

Interests

  • Cryptographic proof systems
  • elliptic-curve cryptography
  • pairing-based cryptography
  • privacy and scalability of blockchains

Education

  • PhD in Cryptography, 2019 - 2022

    Ecole Polytechnique (Paris, France)

  • MEng in Electronics (Diplôme d'ingénieur), 2013 - 2016

    ENSEIRB-MATMECA (Bordeaux, France)

  • Preparatory Classes (Mathematics and Physics), 2011 - 2013

    Moulay Hassan CPGE (Tangier, Morocco)

Work experience

 
 
 
 
 

Staff Cryptography Researcher

Consensys

Dec 2020 – Present Paris (France) and New York (USA)
  • Applied cryptography research: zero-knowledge proofs.
  • Development of high-performance cryptographic libraires (Go).
  • Building Linea type-2 zkEVM.
 
 
 
 
 

Senior Cryptography Engineer

EY Blockchain Hub

Aug 2018 – Nov 2020 Paris, France
  • Applied cryptography research: zero-knowledge proofs, proxy-reencryption.
  • Blockchain development with focus on privacy (Rust, C++, Solidity).
 
 
 
 
 

R&D Engineer

Secure-IC

Oct 2016 – Aug 2018 Rennes, France
  • Applied cryptography research: Elliptic curves, pairings, SCA and FIA countermeasures.
  • Video steganography development on embedded devices (embedded C).
  • Conception of stochastic models and statistical tests for hardware TRNG and PUF.

Talks

On the Security of Constraint-Friendly Map-to-Curve Relations

zkSecurity Invited Talk 2026 - Online

Zero-Knowledge Proofs — The Bridge Between Cryptographic Theory and Blockchain Scalability

Morocco Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Days - Rabat, Morocco

Fast Elliptic Curve Scalar Multiplications in SN(T)ARK Circuits

Latincrypt 2025 - Medellin, Colombia

On pairing implementation

Google Seminar - NYC, United States

Zero-knowedge proofs and blockchains

University Mohammed VI Polytechnic - Ben Guerir, Morocco

Blog

A latent bug in optimized Fp2 square-root algorithms

From my Hackmd - hackmd.io/@yelhousni

Divide-and-Pair SMT for gnark-crypto Twisted Edwards Curves

From my Hackmd - hackmd.io/@yelhousni

A note on implementing subgroup membership using the Tate pairing

From my Hackmd - hackmd.io/@yelhousni

Cipher Challenge 2025 — UM6P

Organization of the Cipher Challenge at UM6P