Zero Knowledge

In this week’s episode, Anna (https://twitter.com/annarrose) catches up in person with Guillermo (https://twitter.com/GuilleAngeris), Tarun (https://twitter.com/tarunchitra) and Alex Evans (https://twitter.com/alexhevans) for a look back at 2023. They revisit their state of mind back in Jan 2023 and share how the year unfolded and evolved for each of them as well as the ZK space as a whole. They survey the themes, applications and research topics that dominated ZK throughout this year and offer retrospective takes on how the ecosystem has changed. Hope you enjoy! We are taking the next week off, but will return with our look forward to 2024 episode in the new year. Here’s some additional links for this episode: Episode 265: Where ZK and ML intersect with Yi Sun and Daniel Kang (https://zeroknowledge.fm/265-2/) Episode 256: New ZK Use Cases with Dan Boneh (https://zeroknowledge.fm/256-2/) Episode 260: ZK in 2023 with Kobi, Guillermo, and Tarun (https://zeroknowledge.fm/260-2/) Episode 302: ZK for web2 int

In this week’s episode, host Anna Rose (https://twitter.com/annarrose) and cohost Nico Mohnblatt (https://twitter.com/nico_mnbl) catch up with Ulrich Haböck (https://twitter.com/UHaboeck), an applied cryptographer at Polygon Labs (https://polygon.technology/). This episode revolves around Ulrich’s journey into applied zero-knowledge cryptography, transitioning from an academic environment to being a full-time practitioner. They discuss his contributions to the field, including his many write-ups and manuscripts as well as his breakthrough research on Multivariate lookups with his work logUp. They also cover his work on logarithmic derivative lookups using GKR with Shahar Papini, as well as his innovative approaches to STARKs over finite fields that are not ‘NTT-friendly’. This episode offers a deep dive into the complexities and breakthroughs in applied cryptography. Here’s some additional links for this episode: A summary on the FRI low degree test by Ulrich Haböck (https://eprint.iacr.org/2022/1216.pdf) Br

In this week's episode, Anna (https://twitter.com/annarrose) and cohost Brendan Farmer (https://twitter.com/_bfarmer) catch up with Jim Posen (https://twitter.com/jimpo_potamus) and Radi Cojbasic (https://twitter.com/radi_cojbasic) from Ulvetanna (https://www.ulvetanna.io/). They cover the origin story of Ulvetanna and their work on the ZK hardware/software intersection before moving on to discuss Binius, a new proving system they developed which is optimised for hardware. Binius is built on towers of binary fields and draws on recent breakthroughs on SNARKs. This work continues the trend towards the use of smaller fields and was inspired by the development of new lookup arguments, work done on multilinear provers and sum-check as well as the use of recursive composition in SNARKs. Here’s some additional links for this episode: Succinct Arguments over Towers of Binary Fields by Diamond and Posen (https://eprint.iacr.org/2023/1784.pdf) Binius: a Hardware-Optimized SNARK (https://www.ulvetanna.io/news/binius-

This week Anna (https://twitter.com/annarrose) and cohost Kobi (https://twitter.com/kobigurk) chat with both Kostas Kryptos (https://twitter.com/kostascrypto) from Mysten Labs (https://mystenlabs.com/), discussing the zkLogin project and Aayush Gupta (https://twitter.com/yush_g) representing the ZK Email + Email Wallet (https://twitter.com/zkemail) projects. They explore the use case of web2 onboarding into web3, through the lens of these two different projects which emerged independently but share a lot of the same characteristics. They discuss the way this use case problem was first identified, the solution that each project came up with independently, the decisions that each project took and the future use cases they would enable. Here’s some additional links mentioned in this episode: Sui by zkLogin (https://sui.io/zklogin) zkSend by Mysten Labs (https://zksend.com/auth) ZK Email (https://prove.email/) Email Wallet (https://emailwallet.org/) Aayush G’s ZK Email Blog (https://blog.aayushg.com/zkemai

This week, Anna (https://twitter.com/annarrose) catches up with Tarun Chitra (https://twitter.com/tarunchitra) and Sreeram Kannan (https://twitter.com/sreeramkannan) during a spontaneous session recorded at Devconnect 2023 (https://devconnect.org/) in Istanbul! They cover a variety of topics seen at the event, including zk toolkits, intents and Data Availability, shedding light on how these ideas are reshaping the framework of digital interaction and governance. Their chat covers the challenges and opportunities these technologies present, highlighting their significance in the current ecosystem. Later, they explore the complexities and nuances of EigenLayer (https://twitter.com/eigenlayer), offering detailed insights into its functionalities, applications, and potential impact on the industry. Here’s some additional links for this episode: ZK Hack IRL Istanbul wrap article (https://zkhack.dev/2023/11/24/zk-hack-istanbul/) ZK Hack Tweet announcing the winners (https://twitter.com/__zkhack__/status/172372843

In this week’s episode, Anna (https://twitter.com/annarrose) takes a look back at the last 6 years of the Zero Knowledge Podcast, how it came to be and the journey the show has been on since that very first episode in 2017. Anna reviews the highs and lows of the show, touching on episodes which made a profound impact on her own journey in the ZK space, as well as episodes she wouldn’t rush to listen to again! Discover key show learnings, how the zkSummit formed and take a trip down memory lane in the 300th episode of Zero Knowledge Podcast. To check out all the ZK Podcast episodes mentioned in this episode, visit the zeroknowledge.fm website here (https://zeroknowledge.fm/) Check out one of the earliest zkSummit talks on the very first event: Zero knowledge proofs intro with Str4d (Zcash) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9YgRDJAFEE&list=PLj80z0cJm8QFnY6VLVa84nr-21DNvjWH7&index=198) The full zkSummit Playlist (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLj80z0cJm8QFnY6VLVa84nr-21DNvjWH7) Sign up here for ZK Hack

In this week's episode, Anna (https://twitter.com/annarrose) chats with Alex Gluchowski (https://twitter.com/gluk64), CEO of Matter Labs (https://matter-labs.io/) & co-creator of the zkSync (https://zksync.io/) network. They catch up on the zkSync project since it launched in Feb 2023. They dive into recent initiatives like the ZK Stack framework, Hyperchains, and the ZK Credo mission statement. They also explore the upcoming Boojum proof system upgrade planned for zkSync Era and discuss the future of the zkSync project as a whole. Here’s some additional links for this episode: Introducing the ZK Stack (https://medium.com/matter-labs/introducing-the-zk-stack-c24240c2532a) Introduction to Hyperchains (https://medium.com/matter-labs/introduction-to-hyperchains-fdb33414ead7) Matter Labs Era Boojum GitHub (https://github.com/matter-labs/era-boojum) zkSync Era: Everything you need to know about ZK Credo, ZK Stack, & Boojum Upgrade (https://medium.com/tx-fusion/zksync-era-everything-you-need-to-know-about-zk-cr

In this week's episode Anna Rose (https://twitter.com/annarrose) chats with Brandon Kase (https://twitter.com/bkase), CTO, and Steve Pack (https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenpack1/), Head of Product at O(1)Labs (https://o1labs.org/), focusing on the Mina Protocol (https://minaprotocol.com/). The discussion covers their journeys leading to their work on the project, developments in the Mina Protocol since the last appearance on ZK Podcast, and insights into the zkApps building environment. They delve into the technical aspects of o1js and the underlying philosophy that drives its design. The episode wraps with a forward-looking perspective on the potential applications of zero-knowledge proofs as the industry shifts from a research-centric to a builder-centric approach. Links referenced in this episode: * Episode 54: Digging into recursive zkSNARKs with Coda (https://zeroknowledge.fm/54-2/) * Episode 199: Snapps on Mina with Emre and Izaak (https://zeroknowledge.fm/episode-199-snapps-on-mina-with-emre-and-izaa

In this week’s episode, Anna (https://twitter.com/annarrose) and Nico (https://twitter.com/nico_mnbl) interview Or Sattath (https://twitter.com/or_sattath), Assistant Professor at the Ben-Gurion (https://cris.bgu.ac.il/en/persons/or-sattath) University in the Computer Science department. This is the 2nd episode with Or on this show, continuing the conversation around Quantum Cryptography. This time, he describes how we can transition from a pre-quantum to a post-quantum environment, looking at existing systems like Bitcoin and Ethereum. He covers why the methods used in the transition will be important, techniques on how this could be executed and the challenges in designing these techniques and the complications that can arise. Finally, they go on to discuss Quantum Money and recent works in this area. Here’s some additional links for this episode: Part 1 - Episode 288: Quantum Cryptography with Or Sattath (https://zeroknowledge.fm/288-2/) Polynomial-Time Algorithms for Prime Factorization and Discrete Loga

In this week’s episode, Anna (https://twitter.com/annarrose) and Nico (https://twitter.com/nico_mnbl) catch up with Brian Retford (https://twitter.com/BrianRetford) and Jeremy Bruestle (https://twitter.com/BruestleJeremy) from RISC Zero (https://www.risczero.com/). They delve into the current status of the project, breaking down the components of the stack, from the RISC Zero zkVM leveraging the RISC-V instruction set architecture to the Bonsai proving service and their new zkEVM, Zeth. They also touch on their design methodology, how the system components integrate and future developments for RISC Zero. Here’s some additional resources for this episode: RISC Zero Developer Guide: Rust Resources (https://dev.risczero.com/zkvm/developer-guide/rust-resources) RISC Zero GitHub: Rust Crates (https://github.com/risc0/risc0#rust-libraries) Using Continuations to Prove Any EVM Transaction (https://www.risczero.com/news/continuations) RISC-V Website (https://riscv.org/) https://zkbench.dev (https://zkbench.dev/)

In this week’s episode, Anna Rose (https://twitter.com/annarrose) is joined by Nigel Smart (https://twitter.com/SmartCryptology), Professor at KU Leuven (https://www.kuleuven.be/english/kuleuven) and Chief Academic Officer at Zama (https://www.zama.ai/) to discuss the advancements in MPC over recent years. Nigel unpacks core components of MPC systems, including garbled circuits, secret sharing, and FHE. They discuss both systems-level applications like DKGs and Threshold Signature Schemes and actual real-world deployments. Throughout the episode, they also discuss how MPC and ZK differ, but how they can be used together to enhance each other's capabilities. Here’s some additional links for this episode: 17 misconceptions about SNARKs (and why they hold us back by Justin Thaler (https://a16zcrypto.com/posts/article/17-misconceptions-about-snarks/) Nigel Smart’s GitHub (https://nigelsmart.github.io/) Unbound Security GitHub (https://github.com/unboundsecurity) Unbound Security Twitter (https://twitter.com/unb

In this week’s episode, host Anna Rose (https://twitter.com/annarrose) and co-host Kobi Gurkan (https://twitter.com/kobigurk) chat with Alex Evans (https://twitter.com/alexhevans) and Guillermo Angeris (https://twitter.com/GuilleAngeris) about their new research paper on Succinct Proofs in Linear Algebra (https://angeris.github.io/papers/zk-linalg.pdf). The paper introduces a framework that simplifies the construction of succinct proofs and offers a toolkit of useful techniques. Their conversation also covers the use of randomized reductions in zero-knowledge proofs, the security of the FRI protocol, and the potential applications of the framework in other systems. Here’s some additional links for this episode: *Papers [Succinct Proofs in Linear Algebra by Evans and Angeris](https://angeris.github.io/papers/zk-linalg.pdf Algebraic Reductions of Knowledge by Kothapalli and Parno (https://eprint.iacr.org/2022/009) Proximity Testing with Logarithmic Randomness by Diamond and Posen (https://eprint.iacr.org/2023

On this week’s episode, Anna Rose (https://twitter.com/annarrose) interviews Michał Zając (https://twitter.com/mpfzajac) and Albert Garreta (https://twitter.com/0xAlbertG) from the Nethermind (https://nethermind.io/) team. They discuss the origin story of Nethermind and its role in the ecosystem today. They also delve into the cryptography research being done at Nethermind, including their work on proving the security of FRI-based protocols, identifying security issues with Fiat-Shamir, exploring topics like ZK malleability and aggregation, and building SNARKs over rings. Here’s some additional links for this episode: Fiat-Shamir Security of FRI and Related SNARKs by Block, Garreta, Katz, Thaler, Tiwari and Zając (https://eprint.iacr.org/2023/1071.pdf) On Soundness Notions for Interactive Oracle Proofs by Block, Garreta, Tiwari and Zając (https://eprint.iacr.org/2023/1256.pdf) NIZKs with an Untrusted CRS: Security in the Face of Parameter Subversion by Bellare, Fuchsbauer and Scafuro (https://link.springer.

In this special live episode, recorded at zkSummit10, host Anna Rose (https://twitter.com/annarrose) chats with regular co-hosts Tarun Chitra (https://twitter.com/tarunchitra), Guillermo Angeris (https://twitter.com/GuilleAngeris) and Nico Mohnblatt (https://twitter.com/nico_mnbl) about the state of ZK today. They cover how the term ‘ZK’ has evolved, market trends that are relevant to the ZK community today and ZK ‘crossovers’ like ZKML or ZKFHE and their current status in the industry. They also discuss how the ZK space could grow in the future and share their predictions. Much of the conversation is fuelled by some great questions and comments from the live zk10 audience. This is the first episode recorded live from a ZK Podcast event, so if you have any feedback, pls tweet us @zeroknowledgefm! Here’s some additional links for this episode: Episode 90: MPC systems with Nigel Smart (https://zeroknowledge.fm/90-2/) Episode 173: Building Private AMMs with Guillermo Angeris (https://zeroknowledge.fm/173-2/) (Gu

On this week’s episode, Anna Rose (https://twitter.com/annarrose) and Tarun Chitra (https://twitter.com/tarunchitra) chat with Mallesh Pai (https://twitter.com/malleshpai), Associate Professor of Economics at Rice University (https://profiles.rice.edu/faculty/mallesh-pai). They explore mechanism design in an economic context and Mallesh’s work around MEV topics - specifically on censorship in an MEV context and within his Special Mechanism Group (https://twitter.com/specialmech/status/1674482046826328065?s=20). The discussion takes the team back into the topic of MEV, revisiting the proposer builder separation concept and the impact that this may have on the efficiency and censorship resistance of these systems. Here’s some additional links for this episode: Episode 183: CowSwap & DAO Tech with Gnosis’s Martin Köppelmann (https://zeroknowledge.fm/183-2/) Episode 216: A Dip into the Mempool & MEV with Project Blanc (https://zeroknowledge.fm/216-2/) Episode 243: Dive Back into MEV with Alex Stokes and Chris

This week, Anna (https://twitter.com/annarrose) and Guillermo (https://twitter.com/GuilleAngeris) chat with David Wong (https://twitter.com/cryptodavidw), author of the Real-World Cryptography book (https://www.manning.com/books/real-world-cryptography?a_aid=Realworldcrypto&a_bid=ad500e09), and a cofounder [zksecurity.xyz]((https://www.zksecurity.xyz/) - an auditing firm focused on Zero Knowledge technology. They chat about what first got him interested in cryptography, his early work as a security consultant, his work on the Facebook crypto project and the Mina project, zksecurity.xyz, auditing techniques and their efficacy in a ZK context, what common bugs are found in ZK code, and much more. Here’s some additional links for this episode: Crypto is not cryptocurrency (https://cryptoisnotcryptocurrency.com/) NCC Group (https://www.nccgroup.com/) OCaml website (https://ocaml.org/) Real-World Cryptography book (https://www.manning.com/books/real-world-cryptography) Mina Protocol (https://minaprotocol.com/)

This week, host Anna Rose (https://twitter.com/annarrose) chats with Finch (https://twitter.com/plaidfinch), Erwan (https://twitter.com/erwanor) and Jen (https://twitter.com/redshiftzero) from the Penumbra (https://twitter.com/penumbrazone) team. They share an update about Penumbra and discuss how this zk-powered project works under the hood. Specifically, how Penumbra harnesses ZK to offer new paradigms for staking, voting and trading. Here’s some additional links for this episode: Episode 247: Exploring Penumbra with Henry de Valence (https://zeroknowledge.fm/247-2/) Penumbra Storage (https://rustdoc.penumbra.zone/main/penumbra_storage/) Penumbra GitHub (https://github.com/penumbra-zone/penumbra) ZK8: How to build a private DEX - Henry de Valence - Penumbra (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ap9ja36EYU) ZK8: Tiered Merkle Topiary in Rust – finch – Penumbra Labs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHoe7lQMcxU) Plaidfinch (Penumbra) - Interchain Private Trading with Penumbra (https://youtu.be/1-RKOR_k4IQ)

In this week’s episode, Anna Rose (https://twitter.com/annarrose) and Kobi Gurkan (https://twitter.com/kobigurk) chat with Or Sattath (https://twitter.com/or_sattath), Assistant Professor at the Ben-Gurion (https://cris.bgu.ac.il/en/persons/or-sattath) University in the Computer Science department. They deep dive into Or’s work on Quantum Cryptography. They begin with definitions of Quantum Computing and Quantum Cryptography, covering what these will mean for existing cryptography. They also explore how new discoveries in this field can interact with existing Proof-of-work systems and how Quantum computers could affect the game theory of mining in the future. Here’s some additional links for this episode: On the insecurity of quantum Bitcoin mining by Sattath (https://arxiv.org/abs/1804.08118) Strategies for quantum races by Lee, Ray, and Santha (https://arxiv.org/abs/1809.03671) Polynomial-Time Algorithms for Prime Factorization and Discrete Logarithms on a Quantum Computer by Shor (https://arxiv.org/abs/

This week, Anna Rose (https://twitter.com/annarrose) chats with Stefan George (https://twitter.com/stefandgeorge) from Gnosis (https://twitter.com/GnosisDAO). They start with an update on the projects that have spun out of Gnosis - Safe, Zodiac, CoW Swap - as well as older experiments that the team had incubated. They then cover the evolution of Gnosis Chain from its origin as xDai, discuss the new aggregate bridge architecture Hashi and explore Gnosis Pay - an on-chain p2p payments product that fulfills some of the original motivations of Bitcoin. They discuss a range of relevant topics such as intents, prediction markets, account abstraction, ZK Bridges, decentralization and more. Here’s some additional links for this episode: Previous Podcast Eps * Episode 65: Bridges, xDai and Burner Wallets with Igor & Austin (https://zeroknowledge.fm/65-2/) * Episode 183: CowSwap & DAO Tech with Gnosis’s Martin Köppelmann (https://zeroknowledge.fm/183-2/) * Episode 255: Verifying Consensus On-Chain with Succinct (htt

This week, host Anna Rose (https://twitter.com/annarrose) and guests Uma Roy (https://twitter.com/pumatheuma), Zaki Manian (https://twitter.com/zmanian) and Tarun Chitra (https://twitter.com/tarunchitra) recap all things EthCC Paris (https://www.ethcc.io/). This impromptu chat takes a look back at the topics, talks, parties and goings-on of the Paris week and what really caught their attention. Expect some spicy takes, offtopic rambles, inside scoops and more. Here’s some additional links for this episode: EthCC Links EthCC Website (https://www.ethcc.io/) EthCC Side Events (https://www.ethccweek.fr/events/) EthCC Mary Maller - How can we use Zero-Knowledge Proofs in Ethereum? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsNoMKSh2e8&pp=ygUQZXRoY2MgcGFyaXMgMjAyMw%3D%3D) EthCC Vitalik Buterin - a history of account abstraction (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLf8qpOmxQc) EthCC6 After Movie (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_p4tVaZ85k&pp=ygUQZXRoY2MgcGFyaXMgMjAyMw%3D%3D) EthCC6 Main Playlist (https://www.youtube.com/w