#protocol-design
A set of research notes and deep dives focused on correctness, security, and operational evidence.
Best starting points
The KelpDAO Exploit Was Not a Bug
Incident memo (April 2026): the 116,500 rsETH release via LayerZero EndpointV2 was a semantic guard failure. Signatures are not truth unless they bind to a unique, finalized source-chain debit.
Hybrid Schemes and Protocol Agility
Deep dive (April 2026): hybrid key establishment is a narrow hedge (HNDL), not “post-quantum TLS”. The hard part is suite identity, transcript binding, and AND-semantics for dual signatures.
The Leaf Is the Hot Path: Signature Placement in Post-Quantum TLS (ML-DSA vs SLH-DSA)
Paper note (April 2026): experiments show SLH-DSA in the server leaf collapses TLS 1.3 handshakes by ~10^3×. PQ migration is a certificate-hierarchy and cost-concentration problem, not an algorithm swap.
Migration Risk Management: Inventory, Prioritization, and Cutover
Correctness-focused deep dive (November 2023): Migration Risk Management: Inventory, Prioritization, and Cutover.
Benchmarking PQC: What to Measure (and What Not To)
Threat-model-first analysis (September 2023): Benchmarking PQC: What to Measure (and What Not To).
Roadmap
- Start with assumptions and invariants
- Enumerate failure modes and attack surfaces
- Define what to monitor and how to roll back