Illya Gerasymchuk

I’m Illya Gerasymchuk — a software engineer and finance professional focused on full-stack development of consumer and financial software. I work across quantitative modeling/ML, financial market microstructure, cryptographic protocol design and implementation (DeFi, smart contracts, Zero-Knowledge Proofs), agentic AI systems and traditional consumer software. My open-source contributions include the IETF TLS 1.3 (RFC 8446) and DTLS 1.3 specifications, zkLocus protocol, over 100 projects on GitHub, and published work on law, computer security, and financial markets.

• zkLocusAuthenticated, private and programmable geolocation on-chain using ZKP.
• zkSafeZonesCivilian protection in conflict areas using Mina Protocol + ZKP.
• Mina Foundation GovBotOn-chain governance tooling for community voting.

I write actively at illya.sh/threads. Below are some of my articles:

• Technical
  • zkSNARKs & zkSTARKs: A Novel Verifiable Computation Model
  • Recursive zkSNARKs & Private Input Visibility
• Privacy
  • Privacy Is A Myth. Unless You're Using Zero-Knowledge Proofs
  • zkLocus: Authenticated Private Geolocation Off & On-Chain
• Finance + Legal
  • BRICS Digital Currency: Cryptocurrency On A Public Blockchain
  • Deposit Guarantee Scheme: Japan's DIA & DICJ

• Master's in Law & Financial Markets Currently pursuing MSc Thesis: Tokenised ELTIF 2.0 - Designing a Compliant On-Chain Register and Transfer-Matching System (Ethereum) under the EU ELTIF RTS
• Master's in Software Engineering & Distributed Systems Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisbon MSc Thesis: Transport Layer Security For Internet of Things
• Bachelor's in Software & Computer Engineering Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisbon

• TLS RFC 8446 Contributor to the specification
• CVE-2018-1000520 Discovered vulnerability in ARM mbedTLS
• Python Software Foundation Contributing Member

• GitHub > github.com/iluxonchik My open-source portfolio of 120+ projects in over 20 programming languages.
• My Threads > illya.sh/threads Longer-form finance, macro, and engineering thread articles with ongoing updates.
• My Thoughts > illya.sh/thoughts Shorter-form timeline of my writings on finance, macro and engineering.
• My Blog > illya.sh/blog Structured articles index with tags and archive for writing on engineering, privacy, law, and markets.
• Twitter/X > x.com/illyaGera Public social feed for concise commentary and real-time updates.
• zkLocus > zklocus.dev Private and programmable geolocation proofs using recursive zkSNARKs, on-chain or off-chain.
• CV/Resume > illya.sh/cv-resume Detailed CV with core competencies, professional experience, and academic record.