Zero Knowledge

SummaryIn this week’s episode, Anna chats with Connor O’Hara from Celestia. After discussing the latest ZK Hack Montréal event where Connor was a judge, they dive into his professional background, the ecosystems he has been a part of and what led him to work on Celestia. They then discuss various ZK-focused initiatives within the Celestia ecosystem.Here’s some additional links for this episode:Episode 311: The Launch of Celestia and Beyond 03:22 ZK Hack Montréal 08:08 ZK Hack Devfolio24:33 Episode 151: John Adler on Optimistic vs ZK Rollup and the data availability problem30:24 Episode 208: Digging into Data Availability with Ismail Khoffi from Celestia41:26 Episode 220: The Road to Plonky2 with Brendan and Daniel from Polygon Zero46:49 Vitalik Buterin Endgame Blog Post 49:41 Light Nodes Everywhere: Why & How - Connor O'Hara at Modulard Summit 56:29 ZK11: 1 Circuit, 5 Rollups: Building a Re-Usable DA Integration for ZK Rollups - Connor O'HaraCheck out the ZK Jobs Board for the latest jobs in ZK at jobsboa

SummaryIn this week’s episode, Anna chats with Jens Groth and Daniel Marin from Nexus. They catch up on all things Groth16 with the author himself before diving into a variety topics, such as formal verification in the context of ZKPs, the Nexus architecture, the benefits and challenges of building a system from the ground up, folding and IVC plus the properties these offer in a zkVM context and much more. Here’s some additional links for this episode:ZKProof Conference in Berlin Nova: Recursive Zero-Knowledge Arguments from Folding Schemes by Kothapalli, Setty, and TziallaNexus zkVMEpisode 284: Using Formal Verification on ZK Systems with Jon Stephens Jens Groth Publication ListNexus Docs Nexus 1.0 MachineEnabling General-Purpose Verifiable Computing | Daniel Marin (Oct 2023) on YouTubeNexus 2.0 SETI@home zkSummit12 is happening in Lisbon on Oct 8th! Applications to speak or attend are now open at zksummit.com, speaker applications close TODAY (Aug 14th) and early bird tickets for attendance are limited!Laun

SummaryIn this week’s episode, Anna and Guille catch up with Joe Bonneau, Assistant Professor at NYU and Research Partner at a16z crypto research. They discuss the research Joe has been working on since he was last on the show in 2019, including Naysayer proofs, Zero-Knowledge Middleboxes, Sealed-Bid Auctions, and other ZK-related research projects to date.Here’s some additional links for this episode:03:18 * Episode 103: Exploring VDFs with Joseph Bonneau05:05 * Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies by Narayanan, Bonneau, Felten, Miller and Goldfeder 11:00 * Verifiable Delay Functions Dan Boneh, Joseph Bonneau, Benedikt Bunz, and Ben Fisch16:18 * Naysayer proofs by Seres, Glaeser and Bonneau 16:18 * Sealed-Bid Auctions31:06 * DARPA SIEVE Project 37:59 * Zombie: Middleboxes that Don’t Snoop by Zhang, DeStefano, Arun, Bonneau, Grubbs and Walfish37:59 * Zero-Knowledge Middleboxes by Grubbs, Arun, Zhang, Bonneau and Walfish51:18 * jbonneau.com 58:04 * Riggs: Decentralized Sealed-Bid Auctions by Tyagi, Arun, Fr

SummaryIn this week’s episode Anna chats with Ismael Hishon-Rezaizadeh, Founder and CEO at Lagrange Labs and Charalampos (Babis) Papamanthou, Head of Research at Lagrange and Co-Director of the Applied Cryptography Lab at Yale University.They revisit the concepts of zk-powered coprocessors and dive into the work that Charalampos did previous to joining Lagrange on Verifiable SQL. They then explore how this is incorporated into the Lagrange coprocessor system, the work they are doing on Reckle Trees, future work and what all this enables for dApp developers. They discuss their new prover marketplace, the general state of infrastructure and how they are keen to bring more concepts from general computing into decentralized blockchain systems. Here’s some additional links for this episode:13:07 * Protocols for Public Key Cryptosystems by Ralph C. Merkle13:23 * Certificate Revocation and Certificate Update by Naor and Nissim 14:08 * Episode 57: Merklize this! Merkle Trees & Patricia Tries 26:32 * Episode 327:

SummaryIn this week’s episode, Anna and Tarun sit down with Hart Lambur irl at EthCC week in Brussels. They start by exploring Hart’s project Across - a cross-chain interoperability solution and sister project to Uma. They explore the Across construction, the tradeoff space and how this compares to other interop solutions. Then, in ZK Podcast tradition, the group shift gears with a few drinks and explore thoughtful observations on the week in Brussels.Here’s some additional links for this episode:Hart Lambur’s TwitterUma WebsiteUma Docs Across Protocol Website Across Protocol Medium9:08 * SchellingCoin: A Minimal-Trust Universal Data Feed 39:13 * ERC-7683 Cross Chain Intents Website 50:58 * Episode 286: Paris 2023 Recap with Uma, Zaki and Tarun50:58 * Episode 292: State of ZK – Live at zkSummit10! 59:17 * Bell Curve Podcast - Deep Dive: The CAKE Framework & Building a One Click Experience | Hart Lambur & Stephane Gosselin 1:23:39 * ZK Whiteboard SessionsZK Hack Montreal has been announced for Aug 9 -

This week's ZK Podcast episode will be delayed to Thursday this week due to Brussels mania. In the meantime, we wanted to highlight the upcoming ZK Hack Montreal event, happening Aug 9-11 2024. This is the 4th IRL zk-focused hackathon produced by ZK Hack. Apply now to attend ZK Hack Montreal as a hacker and jump into zk. https://www.zkmontreal.com/ Find out more about ZK Hack & join the discord as well at https://zkhack.dev/

SummaryIn this week’s episode, Anna and Tarun meet with Varun Srinivasan, co-founder of Farcaster. They explore the Farcaster project, discussing the ideas that prompted its inception and what separates it from existing social media networks. The conversation explores the design space that Farcaster opens up for devs and the kinds of applications that can be built on top of it. Here’s some additional links for this episode:Farcaster Mastodon DiasporaMastodon ActivityPub Secure ScuttlebuttSupercast Drakula What is Frames? Frames Spec Farcaster Frames: what you need to knowWarpcast ZORA Surveycaster BlowfishOpenRank OpenRank Docs - Farcaster Integration NeynarZK Hack Montreal is happening Aug 9 - 11! Apply to join the hackathon here. Episode SponsorsGevulot is the first decentralized proving layer. With Gevulot, users can generate and verify proofs using any proof system, for any use case. Gevulot is offering priority access to ZK Podcast listeners, register on gevulot.com and write “ZK Podcast” in the note fie

SummaryIn this week’s episode, Anna and Guille chat with Ying Tong Lai from Geometry Research and Bryan Gillespie from Inversed Tech about their latest research and works to date. They dive into the pair’s recent work ‘SoK: Programmable Privacy in Distributed Systems’, exploring the classifications and frameworks being introduced. Here’s some additional links for this episode:SoK: Programmable Privacy in Distributed Systems by Benarroch, Gillespie, Lai and Miller Private Programmability in Zcash - Research Results and Community Discussion Zcash Halo2 GitHub Zk0x02 - An intro to Zcash and zkSNARKs - Ariel Gabizon (Zcash) Moving SNARKs from the generic to algebraic group model by Ariel Gabizon Explaining SNARKs Part I: Homomorphic Hidings by Ariel Gabizon Differential Privacy in Constant Function Market Makers by Chitra, Angeris and EvansA Note on Privacy in Constant Function Market Makers by Angeris, Evans and ChitraOn Privacy Notions in Anonymous Communication by Kuhn, Beck, Schiffner, Jorswieck, and Strufe Z

SummaryIn this week’s episode Anna and Nico chat with Alessandro Chiesa, Associate Professor at EPFL and Eylon Yogev, Professor at Bar-Ilan University. They discuss their recent publication; Building Cryptographic Proofs from Hash Functions, which provides a comprehensive and rigorous treatment of cryptographic proofs and goes on to analyze notable constructions of SNARGs based on ideal hash functions. Here’s some additional links for this episode:Building Cryptographic Proofs from Hash Functions by Chiesa and YogevEpisode 200: SNARK Research & Pedagogy with Alessandro ChiesaBarriers for Succinct Arguments in the Random Oracle Model by Chiesa and Eylon Yogev STIR: Reed–Solomon Proximity Testing with Fewer Queries by Arnon, Chiesa, Fenzi and Eylon Yogev ZK Podcast Episode 321: STIR with Gal Arnon & Giacomo Fenzi Computationally Sound Proofs by Micali Tight Security Bounds for Micali’s SNARGs by Chiesa and Yogev Interactive Oracle Proofs by Ben-Sasson, Chiesa, and Spooner Summer School on Probabilistic

SummaryIn this week’s episode, Anna and Tarun chat with Sims Gautam and Liam Eagen from Alpen Labs. They dive into the world of Bitcoin L2s and focus on how ZK can be used to incorporate strong connections between Bitcoin and new execution environments. The group then explores BitVM, covenants, the distinction between the Bridge Operators and sequencers in this model and how this differs from how these actors work in Eth L2s. They then dive into SNARKnado, including what is happening under the hood, the ways in which this system offers round-based fraud games mixed with ZK and which agent provides DA and more. Here’s some additional links for this episode:Bulletproofs++: Next Generation Confidential Transactions via Reciprocal Set Membership Arguments by Eagen, Kanjalkar, Ruffing, Nick Bulletproofs: Short Proofs for Confidential Transactions and More by Bünz, Bootle, Boneh, Andrew, Wuille, and Maxwell Zcash Website Protogalaxy: Efficient Protostar-style folding of multiple instances by Eagen and Gabizon cq: *

SummaryIn this week’s episode Anna chats with Shumo and Yi from NEBRA. They discuss how NEBRA UPA, or Universal Proof Aggregation, can mitigate the high price of putting ZKPs on-chain. They cover what it takes to incorporate proving systems into NEBRA UPA as well as the benefits that these systems will bring, how developers are meant to interact with them, and future integrations to enable seamless cross-zkRollup applications. They cover prover marketplaces, verification aggregation systems, and the design space that these systems open up. Here’s some additional links for this episode:NEBRANEBRA UPA DemoNEBRA DocsUPA Gas Costs by NEBRAMIT Bitcoin ClubfflonK: a Fast-Fourier inspired verifier efficient version of PlonK by Gabizon and WilliamsonUniPlonK: PlonK with Universal Verifier by Chu, Gomes, Iglesias, Norton and TebbsThe Web3 Summit is back!The next edition will be happening in Berlin from Aug 19-21! You can head over to web3summit.com to apply, learn more and grab your tickets today. Episode SponsorsLaun

There is no episode this week, but wanted to highlight the upcoming ZK Hack Montreal event, happening Aug 9-11 2024. This is the 4th IRL zk-focused hackathon produced by ZK Hack. Apply now to attend ZK Hack Montreal as a hacker and jump into zk. https://www.zkmontreal.com/ Find out more about ZK Hack as well at https://zkhack.dev/

SummaryIn this week’s episode Anna and Kobi chat with Muthu Venkitasubramaniam and Carmit Hazay from Ligero. They discuss their work on MPC and ZK for the last 20 years and how the research has evolved. They then dive into a nuanced conversation on how MPC & ZK are interrelated. The discuss Ligero, what led to the project and the early phases, as well as the new Ligetron system and how they plan on getting this technology into the wild. Here’s some additional links for this episode:LigeroLigero: Lightweight Sublinear Arguments Without a Trusted Setup by Ames, Hazay, Ishai and VenkitasubramaniamLigetron by LigeroLigetron: Lightweight Scalable End-to-End Zero-Knowledge Proofs. Post-Quantum ZK-SNARKs on a Browser by Wang, Hazay and Venkitasubramaniamℓ-Diversity: Privacy Beyond k-Anonymity by Machanavajjhala, Gehrke, Kifer and VenkitasubramaniamEfficient RSA Key Generation and Threshold Paillier in the Two-Party Setting by Hazay, Mikkelsen, Rabin, Toft and NicolosiMeshCal.comZero-Knowledge from Secure Multi

SummaryIn this week’s episode Anna chats with Tracy Livengood, co-founder of Pluto; an applied cryptography org building developer tools which add verifiable data from web data to an on-chain application, using ZK. They discuss Tracy’s move from being an engineer in Web2, what prompted his move into the decentralized web and how he eventually found his way into the ZK space. He shares the concept of ‘Web Proofs’, and how Pluto can use some of the TLSNotary stack to bring private web data into on-chain applications as well as a future tool set he hopes to develop with the project. Here’s some additional links for this episode:Pluto.xyzPluto Telegram ChannelDocs.Pluto.xyz0xParc Signal vs. Noise: How LLMs Broke the Internet and How ZK Proofs Are Going to Fix It by Tracy Livengood Sign up for zkMesh here! Gevulot is the first decentralized proving layer. With Gevulot, users can generate and verify proofs using any proof system, for any use case. Gevulot is offering priority access to ZK Podcast listeners, re

SummaryThis week, Anna and Nico catch up with Antonio Sanso, Researcher at the Ethereum Foundation and Youssef El Housni, Engineer at ConsenSys and builder of Linea. They discuss Antonio and Youssef’s new work, Families of prime-order endomorphism-equipped embedded curves on pairing-friendly curves and dive into Elliptic Curve cryptography, Bandersnatch and Verkle Tries amongst much more, before dissecting what terms in the title of this paper truly mean. After getting into the weeds of cryptographic technicalities, the group explores where this work could be used and what it would enable. Here’s some additional links for this episode:zkSummit: A new optimized elliptic curve for one layer proof composition - Youssef El Housni (EY) ZK7: Pairings in a SNARK - Youssef El Housni - ConsenSysZK Study Club - ZEXE reading pt 1 (of 3)ZK Study Club - ZEXE reading pt 2 (of 3)ZK Study Club - ZEXE reading pt 3 (of 3)Introducing Bandersnatch: a fast elliptic curve built over the BLS12-381 scalar field by Masson and SansoV

SummaryThis week, Anna and Tarun catch up with Georgios Konstantopoulos, CTO of Paradigm and long-standing friend of the ZK Pod! First they cover the work Georgios has been doing since he last appeared on the show, covering everything from updates on Foundry to the more recent work on Reth. They then dig into what makes it different, what inspires its design, where it is heading and the eventual end goals of the project. They also chat about the general client node landscape, from the ETH 2.0 research days to present day, before diving into discussing different clients from different teams, how this diversity can protect a chain and how each client can differ. Here’s some additional links for this episode:Georgios’ GitHubIntroducing Reth by ParadigmReth GitHubEpisode 224: Foundry with Georgios KonstantopoulosLoom NetworkCryptoZombies Geth: EthereumFull BSC Node Guide: How to Run BNB Smart Chain Nodes GitHub: flashbots:mev-gethArbitrum The Definitive Guide to Sequencing by James PrestwichVerkle Trees

In this week’s episode, Anna and Guillermo catch up with Justin Thaler, Associate Professor at Georgetown and Research Partner at a16z. The group dive into a handful of points from Justin’s ‘17 Misconceptions about SNARKs’ article, discussing if his views have changed since it was published back in 2023 and whether some points have become common knowledge since the article first rippled through the ZK community. They then dive into his new zkVM Jolt, which was initially described along with Lasso in 2023, but has now been implemented and is open to contributions from the community. Here’s some additional links for this episode:17 misconceptions about SNARKs (and why they hold us back) by Justin Thaler ZK Hack Discord: contains Study Club, Thaler Book Club and more Approaching the 'lookup singularity': Introducing Lasso and Jolt Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing zkStudyClub - Lasso/Jolt (Justin Thaler, Georgetown University/a16z)Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies Book Episode 103: Exploring VDF

In this week’s episode, Anna and Kobi chat with Gal Arnon, Ph.D student from the Weizmann Institute of Science & Giacomo Fenzi, Ph.D. student in the COMPSEC Lab at EPFL. Gal and Giacomo are amongst the co-authors of ‘STIR: Reed–Solomon Proximity Testing with Fewer Queries’ and in this conversation, they discuss how their research led them to work on these topics and where the thesis for this particular work sparked from. They set the stage by exploring the history of FRI and discussing some hidden nuances in how FRI works. And then they introduce STIR, a system that can be used in place of FRI, which incorporates various optimisations to improve the performance. Here’s some additional links for this episode:FRIDA: Data Availability Sampling from FRI by Hall-Andersen, Simkin and WagnerLattice-Based Polynomial Commitments: Towards Asymptotic and Concrete Efficiency by Fenzi, Moghaddas and NguyenDEEP-FRI: Sampling Outside the Box Improves Soundness by Ben-Sasson, Goldberg, Kopparty and Saraf Proximity Gaps

In this week’s episode, Anna and Brendan Farmer catch up with Ben Fisch, CEO of Espresso Systems. They explore the inner workings of the current L2 sequencing landscape and then discuss how a shared sequencing marketplace like Espresso works. They touch on how MEV plays a part in the new system, how the role of the sequencer can be separated into subroles, how all these parts will work together in such a system and much more.Here’s some additional links for this episode:Episode 222: Something Brewing with Jill Gunter and Ben Fisch from Espresso Systems Episode 139: Findora with Benedikt Bunz and Ben Fisch Episode 88: Accumulators with Ben FischCAPE: Configurable Asset Privacy for EthereumCAPE GitHub by Espresso Systems Astria Website The Future of MEV is SUAVE by Flashbots Optimism by SuperchainBen Fisch - Beyond the Base Layer at EthDenver EigenDAEpisode 188: Analyzing Osmosis & Preventing MEV with Sunny and DevEpisode 216: A Dip into the Mempool & MEV with Project BlancEpisode 243: Dive Back into ME

In this week’s episode, Anna catches up with Jordi Baylina, OG Ethereum contributor and Polygon zkEVM Technical Lead. They cover what Jordi has been working on since he was last on the show in 2021. Back then, zkEVMs were still just an idea. Now that many of these systems have launched, they have a chance to look at how these fit into the general L2 landscape. They cover Jordi’s view on engineering decentralized systems and how these are rolled out, and the recent research from Polygon, including their AggLayer proposal. They wrap up on what inspires him to keep contributing in the space.Here’s some additional links for this episode:Polygon zkEVMEpisode 194: zkEVM with Jordi & David from HermezEpisode 145: Circom & Hermez with Jordi Baylina Episode 304: Exploring FRI, LogUp and using M31 for STARKs with Ulrich HaböckEpisode 303: A Dive into Binius with Ulvetanna Episode 313: Revisiting Hardware with IngonyamaThe next ZK Hack IRL is happening May 17-19 in Kraków, apply to join now at zkkrakow.com Gevul