# Madars Virza

I am a co-founder and Chief Scientist of [Radius](https://www.radiustech.xyz/), where we are building financial infrastructure for the AI economy. Radius is a payment network that operates at internet scale — a smart contract platform that processes millions of parallel transactions per second, settles payments in under a second, and executes thousands of transactions for a dollar. Radius is EVM-compatible — existing tools and wallets work as-is. Our team brings decades of experience building cryptographic systems, digital currency, and high-assurance financial infrastructure.

I co-invented [Zerocash](http://zerocash-project.org/) and co-founded [Zcash](https://z.cash). Both relied on [*libsnark*](https://github.com/scipr-lab/libsnark), the efficient C++ library for zero-knowledge proofs, that I co-authored. Cryptographic techniques from our research now underpin core standards in Ethereum and secure billions of dollars in digital assets. Zerocash received the [IEEE Test of Time Award](https://www.media.mit.edu/posts/madars-virza-wins-a-test-of-time-award-at-ieee-symposium-on-security-and-privacy/) at the 2024 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, recognizing work that has had "a broad and lasting impact on both research and practice in computer security and privacy."

At [MIT](https://web.mit.edu/), I was a Research Scientist at the [Media Lab](https://www.media.mit.edu/) where I was part of the [Digital Currency Initiative](https://dci.mit.edu/). At DCI I built high-performance payment systems and privacy-enhancing technologies for digital currencies.

At the Media Lab I was also part of [Joi Ito](https://joi.ito.com/bio.html)'s research group. I am proud of our work with Joi on cryptocurrencies and the ethics of artificial intelligence.

I graduated with a Ph.D. in Computer Science from MIT, where I was fortunate to be advised by the incomparable [Ron Rivest](https://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/). My [Ph.D. thesis](https://madars.org/phd-thesis/), also on *libsnark*, won the [George M. Sprowls Award](https://web.archive.org/web/20171117213914/http://www.eecs.mit.edu/news-events/announcements/eecs-presents-awards-outstanding-phd-and-sm-theses-0) for Best MIT Ph.D. Thesis in Computer Science. Before coming to MIT I did my undergraduate work at the [University of Latvia](https://www.lu.lv/en/) under the excellent guidance of [Andris Ambainis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andris_Ambainis).

The best way to reach me is: [madars@mit.edu](mailto:madars@mit.edu).

Find me on: [Google Scholar](https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=gNgWmKsAAAAJ) · [GitHub](https://github.com/madars) · [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/madars)

Last updated: March 2026