Vitalik Buterin: Obfuscation Protocol iO Can Build Nearly Trustless Voting Systems and Auction Protocols

Odaily reported that Vitalik Buterin published an article titled "Obfuscation: building the final boss of cryptography (Part I)", systematically outlining the technical tree behind the main thread of the obfuscation protocol iO. The article points out that obfuscation technology can convert a program into an “encrypted program,” allowing computation on plaintext inputs while hiding internal logic. Theoretically, it can realize a “trustless trusted third party,” and when combined with blockchain, it can build nearly trustless voting systems, auction protocols, and various other applications. Currently, the runtime of iO solutions is technically polynomial time, but the actual overhead is enormous, with an estimated runtime exceeding the age of the universe.