Project
From cryptography to efficiency
_on_a_blackboard.Cp3WS_hE_2fzKMz.webp)
We helped a client transform their data retrieval architecture by replacing a resource-intensive caching layer with an elegant cryptographic solution, dramatically reducing latency and operational costs.
The Challenge
Our client’s platform needed to retrieve over a million pre-computed game configurations on demand. Their existing architecture uploaded all configurations to Redis at the start of each session—a process that was slow, expensive, and operationally complex. The system required horizontal and vertical scaling during peak usage, driving up infrastructure costs.
Our Approach
Instead of caching millions of records, we asked a different question: what if we could regenerate any configuration on-the-fly, faster than we could retrieve it from cache?
We developed a deterministic generation system using cryptographic primitives:
- Elliptic Curve Cryptography: Used to derive secure, reproducible keys from a master seed
- Bernoulli Shifts: Applied to transform encrypted keys into valid configuration indices
- Deterministic Generation: Any configuration can be recreated from its seed without storing the full dataset
Technical Implementation
We built a high-performance module in Go that takes a seed and produces the corresponding indices in microseconds. The low-level efficiency of Go combined with carefully optimized cryptographic operations made this approach viable.
Key technical achievements:
- 100x faster retrieval: 10ms for 1 million configurations vs. 1 second previously
- 90% cost reduction: Eliminated Redis infrastructure and reduced server requirements
- Simplified architecture: Removed horizontal scaling complexity during peak loads
- Reduced storage footprint: Optimized database encoding reduced storage requirements significantly
Results
The new system is not only faster—it’s fundamentally simpler. By leveraging cryptographic properties to encode information rather than storing it explicitly, we eliminated an entire layer of infrastructure while delivering better performance. The client now operates with lower costs, reduced operational burden, and a system that scales effortlessly.