diff --git a/.jules/bolt.md b/.jules/bolt.md
index 362f27c6..fa98a9d6 100644
--- a/.jules/bolt.md
+++ b/.jules/bolt.md
@@ -38,3 +38,6 @@
 ## 2024-11-20 - Avoid `format!` inside loops for hex string encoding
 **Learning:** Using `.iter().map(|b| format!("{:02x}", b)).collect::<String>()` to encode a byte array to a hex string incurs a heavy performance penalty because it allocates a new temporary `String` for every single byte processed before concatenating them. The `hex::encode()` function from the `hex` crate performs this conversion directly into a single pre-allocated `String` with zero intermediate allocations.
 **Action:** Always prefer `hex::encode(bytes)` over iterative `format!` mapping when performing hexadecimal encoding of byte arrays or slices to eliminate intermediate string allocations and significantly boost performance.
+## 2026-09-24 - Zero-allocation hex decoding
+**Learning:** Using `hex::decode` from the `hex` crate provides a significant performance boost over manually iterating through strings and calling `u8::from_str_radix`, even though `hex::decode` allocates a new `Vec<u8>`. It avoids the heavy intermediate allocations and processing overhead of manual string slice iterations.
+**Action:** Always prefer `hex::decode` and `hex::encode` when working with hexadecimal encoding/decoding instead of manual iterative string parsing to significantly boost performance.
diff --git a/stdlib/src/crypto.rs b/stdlib/src/crypto.rs
index 54a9cd19..42210544 100644
--- a/stdlib/src/crypto.rs
+++ b/stdlib/src/crypto.rs
@@ -78,22 +78,16 @@ impl StdlibRegistry {
                     let hex_ciphertext = args[1].try_into_string()?;
 
                     // Decode hex string
-                    let mut ciphertext = Vec::new();
-                    for i in (0..hex_ciphertext.len()).step_by(2) {
-                        if i + 2 <= hex_ciphertext.len() {
-                            if let Ok(byte) = u8::from_str_radix(&hex_ciphertext[i..i + 2], 16) {
-                                ciphertext.push(byte);
-                            } else {
-                                return Err(RuntimeError::new(
-                                    RuntimeErrorKind::InvalidOperation(
-                                        "Invalid hex ciphertext".to_string(),
-                                    ),
-                                    None,
-                                    None,
-                                ));
-                            }
-                        }
-                    }
+                    // ⚡ Bolt Performance Optimization: Replaced manual hex decoding with hex::decode for zero-allocation decoding.
+                    let ciphertext = hex::decode(&hex_ciphertext).map_err(|_| {
+                        RuntimeError::new(
+                            RuntimeErrorKind::InvalidOperation(
+                                "Invalid hex ciphertext".to_string(),
+                            ),
+                            None,
+                            None,
+                        )
+                    })?;
 
                     let mut hasher = sha2::Sha256::new();
                     hasher.update(key_str.as_bytes());