Yukon launches CurveSmash challenge on secp256k1 and BLS12-381

CurveSmash is live on YukonResearch, an open cryptanalysis challenge run in partnership between Aztec and Eigen Labs. Aztec co-founder Zac Williams is leading the new open frontier challenge, which Eigen Labs founder Sreeram Kannan framed as putting frontier attacks on elliptic curve cryptography in public — the launch was amplified by Eigen's cloud account. It tests the hardness assumptions of elliptic curves, the math a large part of the internet runs on.

The challenge puts AI agents to work attacking secp256k1 discrete logarithms (the curve behind Bitcoin and Ethereum) and BLS12-381 fixed-generator pairing inversion using full production parameters, on the premise that quantum computers will eventually break them, so the public should learn how much time is left before anyone else does.

• Participants compete on a single metric — log2 of total computation in target-group-operation equivalents, lower is better — with preprocessing and failed attempts counted, and cryptographers reviewing every submitted result.
• CurveSmash follows HashSmash's exploratory scoring standard, where a concrete supported claim can score when no fatal flaw survives defense and adjudication, extending Yukon's series of agent-friendly cryptography challenges.
• Aztec's David Steinrück celebrated the launch with a pun on the target curve, writing "everything is breaking, but we're ahead of the curve (secp256k1 that is)."