Circle Research

Empowering crypto innovation through open-source R&D

Circle Research is committed to open-source principles, making our leading research accessible to the global community. We aim to contribute to the public good and accelerate crypto, blockchain, and Web3 innovation. 

Research contributions

With focus areas like cryptography, cryptocurrency standards, zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) technology, and smart contract development, Circle Research develops insights and reference materials at the cutting edge of our industry.

Latest research

Confidential ERC-20 Framework

Inco Network and Circle Research introduce the Confidential ERC-20 Framework: Compliant Privacy on Public Blockchains using Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE). The framework transforms standard ERC-20 tokens into confidential wrapped versions that mask balances and transaction amounts, providing users with additional privacy protections while maintaining compliance controls.

Temporary Approve

Exploring ERC-7674, a proposed extension to ERC-20 tokens. Unlike existing ERC-20 approvals, ERC-7674 introduces temporary approvals which last only for a single transaction, reducing a user’s exposure to contracts they have approved.

Resources

TXT2TXN

An open-source web app prototype for interpreting and executing user intents with AI (LLMs), showcasing how plain language can be the future gateway to on-chain actions. TXT2TXN stands for text-to-transaction and uses an LLM to parse freeform English text, classify it as a type of action, and convert it into a signed intent or transaction payload to be executed on-chain.

Chainmail

An open-source smart contract and web app for verifying signed emails on the blockchain to protect against phishing. Chainmail serves as a public key infrastructure (PKI) to connect email addresses, PGP keys, and blockchain addresses. Users can verify email messages directly on-chain.

R-Pool and Settlement Markets for Recoverable Wrapper Tokens

In conjunction with Stanford researchers, Circle Research introduces the concept of “R-Pools”, which serve as decentralized insurance for DeFi protocols by facilitating exchanges between unsettled recoverable wrapper tokens for base tokens. This work discusses two designs of such a mechanism: AMM and order book.

Resources

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FAQs

Circle Research has a charter to accelerate and amplify technical innovation within the crypto industry by developing technical, open-source research with direct applications. Led by a small team of Circle researchers, engineers, and product managers, projects published by Circle Research are committed to public good and open-source contributions to push the boundaries of crypto and blockchain technology.

Yes. Content published by Circle Research is free and available for anyone to consume, use, and build upon.

Yes. Most contributions from Circle Research will include code in our GitHub repository. Anyone can access this open-source code and fork it for their application and use.

We will aim to publish open-source research contributions with code a few times a year. 

Economic Research

Check out our Policy Hub for our latest papers on macroeconomics, stablecoins, digital assets, distributed ledger technology (DLT) and blockchains.