Our mission
Cryptographers use encryption every day - without seeing the mathematics behind it. But understanding how and why cryptographic systems work makes for less intimidating cryptography and more memorable cryptography concepts. We introduce the mathematics of cryptography in an accessible way in an interactive format so that learners can build an understanding of the concepts and terminology before jumping into the cryptography implementations.
CryptoMath is the only free, interactive place to actually understand the mathematics behind cryptography and blockchain - a depth of university course material presented in the engagement of a game - all for free and open access to anyone with a curious mind. No paywall, ever.
How we teach — our pedagogy
Intuition before notation
Every concept starts with a concrete picture or interactive you can manipulate, then we formalise it.
Small, active steps
Lessons are broken into bite-sized steps with a quick check-for-understanding after each — learning by doing.
Connected, not isolated
A sequenced learning path plus a glossary and cross-links so nothing is a dead end.
Who's behind CryptoMath
Tehzeeb Ali Gows Basha
Founder & lead author, CryptoMath Academy
CryptoMath is built by an independent educator who discovered their love for number theory and who desired to have a resource explain the subject to them in the same way that they were explained to. As a competitive mathematician and calculus student who has developed an interest in Post-Quantum Cryptography, appropriate resources on these topics can be challenging to find. My experiences competing in the World Mathematics Championships as well as working at Beldex, an independent crypto company, have allowed me to develop a platform that hopes to bridge the gap between mathematics and cryptography—the platform that I myself desired to exist.
By the numbers
What learners say
“The modular arithmetic calculator finally made RSA click for me — I could *see* the one-way function instead of just reading about it.”
“I used the elliptic-curve and quantum sections to prep for a security course. The step-by-step reveals were exactly what I needed.”
Rigor & sources
We aim to be mathematically faithful. The material here is grounded in standard references; if you want to go deeper, these are excellent next reads:
- Katz & Lindell, Introduction to Modern Cryptography — the standard rigorous text.
- Hoffstein, Pipher & Silverman, An Introduction to Mathematical Cryptography — number theory to lattices.
- Menezes, van Oorschot & Vanstone, Handbook of Applied Cryptography — free online.
- NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography project — standards & rationale.
- Stanford CS255 & MIT OpenCourseWare cryptography materials — free lecture notes.
For teachers & classrooms
CryptoMath is free for classroom use — no accounts, licences or installs required. Drop a ready-made, interactive module on the mathematics of modern security straight into your lesson:
- Modular arithmetic — clock arithmetic with a live calculator (great for ages 13+).
- Primes & RSA — build and break a toy RSA key step by step.
- Hashing & blockchain — mine real SHA-256 blocks in the simulator.
- Quantum vs classical — why the world is moving to post-quantum cryptography.
Each stage on the learning path lists objectives, difficulty and estimated time, so it slots into a lesson plan directly. Bilingual English/Arabic.
Ready to start?
Follow the structured path from foundations to post-quantum cryptography.