Jun 30, 2026

WarpCrypto

Rust
Python
PyO3
Cryptography

WarpCrypto: TgCrypto, Rewritten in Rust

WarpCrypto is a Python extension written in Rust (built with PyO3 and maturin). It implements the cryptography Telegram’s MTProto protocol needs, and works as a drop-in replacement for TgCrypto.

What It Implements

AES-256-IGE: used by MTProto 2.0
AES-256-CTR: used for CDN encrypted files
kdf: the MTProto 2.0 key derivation function
pack_message / unpack_message: KDF, AES-IGE and message framing in a single call, with msg_key verification on the way in

Key Features

3–5× faster than TgCrypto in multi-client benchmarks (1–128 concurrent clients)
Hardware AES: AES-NI on x86_64 and ARMv8 AES on ARM, picked at runtime so one wheel runs everywhere
Releases the GIL on large inputs, so other Python threads keep running during crypto work
No per-call allocations: a reused per-thread scratch buffer means a 1 MiB message costs no extra Rust heap memory
Memory safe: no buffer overflows, use-after-free or data races
Strict input checks: key, IV and session lengths are validated instead of crashing

Performance Work

Most of the speed comes from keeping the hot loop inside the AES backend. IGE chains block to block, so the dispatch cost of each block call used to dominate. Running the whole loop inside the backend removed it. CTR keeps an 8-block unroll so blocks are processed in parallel.

Cutting redundant buffer copies gave unpack_message a 41.8% speedup on 1 MiB messages, with output byte-identical to earlier builds.

Try It

pip install WarpCrypto

import os
import warpcrypto

data = os.urandom(1024)
key, iv = os.urandom(32), os.urandom(32)

encrypted = warpcrypto.ige256_encrypt(data, key, iv)
assert warpcrypto.ige256_decrypt(encrypted, key, iv) == data