This page supplements draft-irtf-cfrg-pairing-friendly-curves's Adoption Status section (§4.1) with the full curve-by-curve comparison, including candidates considered and not selected. See Issue #72 for background on this page's scope and venue.
Survey current as of July 2026. Curves selected in the draft (BLS12-381, BN462, BLS48-581) are shown in bold.
Comparison across all curves evaluated during the curve-set discussion (Issue #76), including the proposed alternatives that were not adopted.
| Curve | ISO/IEC 15946-5:2022 | # Libraries | # Applications |
|---|---|---|---|
| BLS12-381 | BLS12 examples added (2022 ed.) | 12+ (blst, mcl, RELIC, MIRACL Core, gnark-crypto, noble-curves, arkworks, constantine, CIRCL, zkcrypto, Adjoint, …) | 6+ (Ethereum, Zcash, Chia, DFINITY, Algorand, Filecoin) |
| BN462 | Annex D.2.3 (exact u-value match) | 3 (mcl, MIRACL Core, Adjoint) | 1 (DFINITY) |
| BLS48-581 | Annex D.3.5 (exact u-value match) | 2 (Kyushu Univ., MIRACL Core) | — |
| BN446 (proposed) | Annex D.2.2 (pre-exTNFS legacy; same ed. sets |p|≥461 guideline) | 1 (RELIC) | — |
| BLS48-575 (proposed) | Not listed | 1 (RELIC) | — |
| BLS24-509 (proposed) | Not listed (ISO 2022 has BLS24 at 559-bit p, not 509) | 0 | — |
| Library | Maintainer | Status | Curves ≥ 128-bit (pairing-friendly) |
|---|---|---|---|
| blst | Supranational | Active | BLS12-381 |
| mcl | Herumi (Shigeo Mitsunari) | Active | BLS12-381, BN462, BN254N, BN382M, BN_SNARK1 |
| Kyushu Univ. BLS48 | Kyushu University | Archived (reference impl) | BLS48-581 |
| gnark-crypto | Consensys | Active | BLS12-381, BN254, BLS12-377, BLS24-315, BW6-761, BW6-633 |
| noble-curves | Paul Miller | Active | BLS12-381, BN254 |
| arkworks | arkworks-rs contributors | Active | BLS12-381, BN254, BLS12-377, BLS24-315, BW6-761, MNT4-298, MNT6-298 |
| constantine | Mamy Ratsimbazafy | Active | BLS12-381, BN254, BLS12-377, BW6-761, BLS24-317 |
| CIRCL | Cloudflare | Active | BLS12-381 |
| zkcrypto | zkcrypto contributors | Active | BLS12-381 |
| RELIC | Diego Aranha et al. | Active | BLS12-381, BLS12-446, BLS12-455, BLS12-638, BLS24-477, BLS48-575, BN382R, BN446, BN638, CP8-544, K54-569, KSS18-508, OT8-511 |
| MIRACL Core | MIRACL Ltd. | Active | BLS12-381, BLS48-581, BN462, BLS12-383, BLS12-461, BLS24-479, BLS48-556, BN254N, BN254CX, BN256I, BN512I |
| Adjoint | Adjoint Inc. | Stale | BLS12-381, BN462, BN254N, BN254B, BN254S1, BN254S2, BN_SNARK1 |
| PBC | Stanford University | Legacy | BN (generic), MNT, Freeman, supersingular |
| TEPLA | University of Tsukuba | Legacy | BN254N, BN254B |
| Intel-IPP | Intel | Active | BN256I |
| bls12377js | Celo Foundation | Stale | BLS12-377 |
| Application | Organization | Curve |
|---|---|---|
| Ethereum (consensus / EIP-2537) | Ethereum Foundation | BLS12-381 |
| Zcash (Sapling/Orchard) | Zcash Foundation | BLS12-381 |
| Chia Network | Chia Network Inc. | BLS12-381 |
| DFINITY / Internet Computer | DFINITY Foundation | BLS12-381, BN382M, BN462 |
| Algorand | Algorand Foundation | BLS12-381 |
| Filecoin | Protocol Labs | BLS12-381 (via blst) |
Sources and further detail: notes/table_adoption.md in the repository. A historical 2020-vs-2026 comparison is discussed in Issue #72.