It sounds like there is probably some ongoing drama here, but aside from that: this post has convinced me that standards this important need to be decided on by

It sounds like there is probably some ongoing drama here, but aside from that: this post has convinced me that standards this important need to be decided on by organizations that aren't a government. I wonder who else could reasonably host a standardization process? Maybe the Linux Foundation? All the cryptography talent seems to be working on ZK proofs at the moment in the Ethereum ecosysetem; I think if Vitalik organized a contest like NIST people would pay attention. The most important thing is to incentivize attackers to break the cryptography on dummy examples instead of in the wild. Ideally: before the algorithm is standardized. The Ethereum folks are well setup to offer bounties for this. If a cryptographer can make FU money through responsible disclosure, then there is less incentive to sell the exploit to dishonest parties.