Buterin Sees Path to Private On-Chain Voting with Obfuscation

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has outlined how indistinguishability obfuscation could be used to enable private, on-chain voting. In a technical essay, he explained that this form of cryptography can turn software into protected programs, making it impossible for people to see its internal code or data.

This technology could remove the need for trusted groups to manage ballots and reveal results, instead using an obfuscated program to process encrypted votes and produce a final tally without showing individual vote counts. Buterin noted that while blockchains would still be necessary to manage functions like tracking information over time, the use of obfuscation would provide almost no trust assumption.

Buterin also acknowledged that current methods for obfuscation are impractical due to their high computational requirements, but he outlined three possible routes to make them more practical: optimizing lattice-based methods, developing bolder cryptographic assumptions, or inventing entirely new approaches. He has set aside 16,384 ETH worth around $45 million at the time to fund work on this technology.