Journalism, finance, and markets reporting by Nishant Kumar

Nishant Kumar is a PhD candidate in computer science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he conducts advanced research in applied cryptography, with a concentration on secure multiparty computation (MPC). Previously, he was a researcher at Microsoft Research India, contributing to the EzPC project—an open-source framework that integrates privacy-preserving machine learning with TensorFlow. Kumar’s work in efficient zero-knowledge proofs and MPC protocols supports confidentiality and compliance within blockchain and DeFi ecosystems. He has published multiple peer-reviewed papers in top-tier cryptographic journals and presented at conferences including Eurocrypt and NDSS. His academic research has been cited over 400 times and directly influences developments in secure computation frameworks used in blockchain privacy tools.

Kumar’s recent collaboration with industry researchers resulted in an MPC-based toolchain tested on private blockchain deployments. With active mentorship roles and open-source contributions, Kumar is part of the next generation of cryptographers building real-world privacy tech for decentralized finance and secure smart contracts.