Jon Stephens

CEO & Co-founder at Veridise

Jon’s expertise and interest lie in the formal methods of computer science: program analysis, program verification, synthesis, and security.

During his PhD studies at UT Austin (as part of the UToPiA Group), Jon has published research and developed tools in smart contract security (e.g., SmartPulse).

Earlier, Jon graduated with a B.Sc. and an M.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of Arizona, where he conducted research in malware detection evasion, analysis of exception-based control transfers, covert channels, static analysis (covert collusion detection), and dynamic analysis (language-agnostic interpreter optimization).

At Veridise, Jon has audited a wide range of protocols, including smart contracts, blockchain implementations, and ZK circuits. Jon has audited clients such as MakerDAO, Semaphore, Manta Network, and Ankr.

Experience overview

Experience

Circom, Go, Leo, Rust, Solidity, Sui Move, Typescript, o1js, Substrate, arkworks, Halo2, Substrate

Specialities

Smart Contracts, Zero Knowledge, Infrastructure

Previous work

Academic work
Full audit reports
    • Prime Protocol, 21 Oct 2022, security review of Prime’s cross-chain over-collateralized stablecoin
    • Semaphore, 5 Jan 2023, security review of Groups v3
    • Manta Network, 1 Sep 2022, Manta Chain (blockchain implementation)
    • Unirep, 28 Aug 2023, security review of Unirep’s Universal Reputation Protocol

Conference presentations

Taxonomy of ZK bugs

16 min | ETH Denver 2023

Hybrid Attack Synthesis for DeFi

14 min | Solidity Summit 2022

Are your Zero-Knowledge Proofs...

26 min | DevCon 2022

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