Vitalik introduces the new obfuscation protocol Diamond iO, making the 'impossible' seem possible Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin published a technical article introducing a new program obfuscation protocol called Diamond iO. Previously, conservative obfuscation schemes took longer to run than the lifespan of the universe—completely unusable. Diamond iO, by modifying the BGG+14 attribute-based encryption scheme, significantly reduces runtime, pushing program obfuscation from 'absolutely impossible' to 'theoretically possible.' Vitalik explained that the core idea of Diamond iO is embedding fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) computations into attribute-based encryption (ABE), which is much simpler than conservative schemes and avoids stacking a bunch of complex constructions. However, this approach relies on two relatively new cryptographic assumptions, so its security still needs further validation. The main efficiency bottleneck lies in the depth of hash computations. He also proposed several optimization directions, hoping more people will pay attention and conduct research to eventually create an obfuscation protocol that can actually run.