Zero Knowledge

In this week’s episode, Anna checks in with Aztec, a ZK-based privacy L2 project. She speaks with Joe Andrews and Lead Engineer, Charles Julian. They discuss some of the team’s most important ZK research and implementations such as Plonk and how bringing privacy to Ethereum could truly change the way we do DeFi. They also discuss Aztec Connect and how it relates to zk.money, the Aztec roadmap with future projects like DSL Noir and Aztec 3, as well as a quick postmortem on the halted Aztec Connect launch. Here are some links for this episode: Ep 176: Zk-zk-rollup & zk.money with Zac and Joe from Aztec Ep 75: Exploring Aztec with Zac Williamson Ep 232: Cutting Edge ZK Research with Mary Maller AZTEC Trusted Setup PLONK: Permutations over Lagrange-bases for Oecumenical Noninteractive arguments of Knowledge AztecProtocol/barretenberg: C++ elliptic curve library | GitHub AztecProtocol/aztec-connect-bridges | GitHub If you are looking to jump into ZK professionally, check out the ZK Jobs board to find

In this week’s episode, we throwback to a sake-fueled conversation between Anna and returning guest Guillermo Angeris, recorded in April during DevConnect in Amsterdam. They cover Guillermo’s personal journey into math, math history in general, how to bring more people into the space and the potential opportunities and downsides of bringing some kinds of math mainstream. It is a bit of different one, but hope you enjoy! Here are some links for this episode: Ep 173: Building Private AMMs with Guillermo Angeris Ep 206: Distilling DeFi Primitives with Guillermo, Alex and Tarun Ep 212: 2021 < 2022 with Co-hosts & Friends Ep 228: Catch-up at DevConnect with Friends Grigori Perelman - Wikipedia Banach–Tarski Paradox - Wikipedia Understanding ZKPs Through Simple Examples Convex Analysis - Wikipedia Stephen P. Boyd - Wikipedia Four Color Theorem - Wikipedia A History of Mathematics/Middle Ages/Europe During the Middle Ages The ZK Podcast team is growing! We're looking to hire an additiona

In this week’s episode, Anna and Tarun chat with Ye Zhang and Haichen Shen, the founders of Scroll - a native zkEVM Layer 2 Solution for Ethereum. They cover the founding of Scroll, the problems they aim to solve with their native zkEVM layer 2 solution, why scaling Ethereum is important, the philosophy of their zkEVM, and how this differs from other proposals as well as potential use cases or products that could benefit from the system. They wrap up with an exploration of how DApps and products on top of such as zkEVM may interact with the mainchain and with other applications. Here are some links for this episode: Scroll Scroll Tech Github Scroll Whitepaper Episode 194: zkEVM with Jordi and David from Polygon Hermez Andrew Miller at UIUC Ethereum Yellow Paper Ethereum Design Decisions The ZK Podcast team is growing! We're looking to hire an additional content producer to join us. There's a job posting for this role over on the ZK Jobs Board. Learn more and apply here. Today’s episode is

In this week’s episode, Anna chats with Rahul Magani, the Applied ZK Lead at Jump Crypto, and Hendrik Hofstadt, Project Lead at (Wormhole Crypto)[https://twitter.com/wormholecrypto]. They look at how Wormhole first came to be, the challenges of interoperability, the design decisions they made in balancing security, speed and functionality, the risks facing these types of solutions, including the famous Wormhole hack, what the future holds and how they aim to explore using zk in bridging. Here are some links for this episode: Ep 230: Designing Optimistic Interoperability with Nomad Ep 232: Cutting Edge ZK Research with Mary Maller Jump Crypto Wormhole Repository Wormhole Portal Bridge Jump Trading Group Key Pillars of Crypto Infrastructure Pyth Network Serum Project Fiat-Shamir Vulnerability Jump Trading Bug Bounties BN254 Curve Standard PlonK Proof System Nova Proof System Manta: a Plug and Play Private DeFi Stack BLS12-377 curve operations Wormhole Hack Report The ZK Tech side round on Gitcoin start

In this week’s episode, Anna and co-host Kobi Gurkan chat with Mary Maller, a ZK Researcher at the Ethereum Foundation. They cover Mary’s journey into cryptography, her work on trusted setups, universal SNARKs and Plookup tables. They also discuss the work she and Kobi did on aggregatable DKGs, what working on research at the EF is like and more. Here are some links for this episode: Caulk: Lookup Arguments in Sublinear Time Aggregatable Distributed Key Generation Reaching Consensus For Asynchronous Distributed Key Generation Updatable and Universal Common Reference Strings with Applications to zk-SNARKs Marlin: Preprocessing zkSNARKs with Universal and Updatable SRS SNARKBlock: Federated Anonymous Blocklisting from Hidden Common Input Aggregate Proofs SnarkPack: Practical SNARK Aggregation R1Cs ZK Hack Puzzles Ep 133: Trusted Setup Ceremonies Explored Ep 93: Light clients & ZKPs with Celo Bonus ZK Hack Wrap with Kobi! Mary's Github: mmaller - GitHub Check out the @ZeroKnowle

In this week’s episode, Anna chats with Julien Niset, co-founder of Argent, about crypto wallets. They explore the history of wallet landscape, the interfaces we use for the decentralized web, the importance of account abstraction, smart contract wallets and Argent’s bet on ZK rollups. Here are some links for this episode: Episode 24: Blockchain UX and the UXUnConf Argent Argent Labs | Github What is an 'EOA' account? EIP-1271: Standard Signature Validation Method for Contracts zkSync Starkware Find all our links here! If you are looking to jump into ZK professionally, check out the ZK Jobs board to find job posts from some of the top teams working in ZK – like Aleo, Anoma and Mina. If you’re looking to hire, be sure to add your jobs as well! More at ZK Jobs Board. Today’s episode is sponsored by Polygon Hermez. The Polygon Hermez zk-rollup is a layer 2 built on top of Ethereum that solves its scalability through mass transfer processing rolled into a single transaction. Zero-knowledge

In this week’s episode, Anna catches up with Anna Caroll and James Prestwich from Nomad. Together they explore the Nomad optimistic interoperability solution, how it first was developed, what lessons it takes from previous attempts at interoperability and cross-chain bridging, how the system works and more. Here are some links for this episode: Ep 118: Tarun and James talk Flash Loans & more | ZK Podcast Ep 34: Blockchain 101: What are smart contracts? | ZK Podcast The Balance Wheel | prestwi.ch The Interoperability Trilemma | medium.com Optimistic Bridges | blog.connext.network Connext Has Partnered With Nomad | blog.connext.network Nomad | Home @nomad-xyz | Github @prestwich | Github If you are looking to jump into ZK professionally, check out the ZK Jobs Board. ZKValidator is looking for a Junior Researcher who is interested in exploring and writing about emerging fields of cryptography like ZKPs, Proof-of-Stake, Bridges, Rollups, MEV, and other cutting edge meta blockchain topics. Check out th

In this week’s episode, Anna dives back into the Polkadot world with friend and occasional co-host Rob Habermeier from Parity. They cover XCM - the Cross-Consensus Messaging format - and how XCM allows parachains to speak to one another, passing messages through the validators on the relay chain via XCMP Cross-Chain Message Passing. Here are some links for this episode: @paritytech | Github @Polkadot | Twitter @rphmeier | Twitter @paritytech/polkadot | Github Ep 83: From Warp Sync to SPREE with Polkadot's Rob Habermeier | ZK Podcast Ep 15: Chatting about consensus algorithms with Robert Habermeier | ZK Podcast @paritytech/xcm-format | Github Kusama, Polkadot's Canary Network | kusama.network Sub0 Online: Getting Started with XCM - Your First Cross Chain Messages Pallets | docs.substrate.io Substrate.io Statemine | parachains.info Polkadot Bridges Connecting The Polkadot Ecosystem With External Networks | polkadot.network Learn Spree | wiki.polkadot.network Cloaking Device | memory-alpha.fandom.com

In this week’s episode, Anna catches up with Tarun, Guillermo and Brendan at DevConnect Amsterdam to cover a range of interesting and random topics like how blockchain and AI thinking differs, where it could intersect and how ZK tech could be implemented, how science could benefit from more adversarial testing, why peer review is broken, math theory, takeaways from DevConnect and more! Here are some links for this episode: DevConnet AMS 2022 zkSummit 7 in Amsterdam zkSummit 7 Talk Videos | YouTube Playlist Einstein Notation | Wikipedia Wordcels vs. Shape Rotators, Explained Diplomacy game P-Value Explained Topology What is measure theory? ZK Validator is hiring! ZKValidator is looking for a Junior Researcher who is interested in exploring and writing about Zero Knowledge and other emerging fields of cryptography, Proof-of-Stake, Bridges, Rollups, MEV, and other cutting edge meta blockchain topics. If this sounds like you, check out the add here and get in touch: https://jobsboard.zeroknowledge.fm/job/

In this week’s episode, Anna chats with Sam Blackshear, co-founder and CTO at Mysten Labs. Sam has a background in programming language research and is one of the authors of the Move language, a language that can be used to implement custom transactions and smart contracts. They chat about Mysten’s concept of programmable objects and what properties are necessary to make this functional for a blockchain context. They also cover Sui, a smart contracts platform which is a generalized L1 with a new asset centric data model for parallel transaction commits being developed by Mysten, what's next in the roadmap and some of the collaborations to come. Here are some links for this episode: Mysten Labs Website Twitter @mysten_labs Sam on Twitter @b1ackd0g Move Language Move Whitepaper Sui Whitepaper Github @MystenLabs twitter @dahlia_malkhi Skylark: Go configuration language Sui docs page Sui GitHub Sui Discord Move GitHub Move community page Move Discord If you are looking to jump into ZK professionally,

This week, Anna catches up with Sergey Gorbunov from Axelar and revisits the topic of bridges. They chat about what led Sergey to work on interoperability, the problems these solutions try to solve, how it compares to existing solutions, and what's next for the project. They also chat about some of the challenges of a multi bridge landscape and the fragmentation of liquidity. Links for the episode: Episode 223: Connecting Cosmos and Ethereum with Gravity Bridge Axelar Network Github @axelarnetwork Axelar Whitepaper IBC Overview Interoperability and Market Segmentation by Steve McKeon If you are looking to jump into ZK professionally, check out the ZK Jobs board to find job posts from some of the top teams working in ZK - like Aleo, Anoma and Mina. If you’re looking to hire, be sure to add your jobs as well! More at ZK Jobs Board. Today’s episode is sponsored by Polygon Zero. Polygon Zero is a layer 2 scaling solution for Ethereum, powered by Plonky2. A groundbreaking prover system, which gene

This week, Anna catches up with Gubsheep from 0xPARC. They chat about Dark Forest – a decentralized zk-based RTS game, built on Ethereum. They cover how it has evolved in the past 2 years and what’s upcoming in the Dark Forest’s community, governance and experiments. They recap the recent Gitcoin GR13 ZK Tech side round, review some moonshot ideas for ZK projects of the future and discuss potential avenues of funding in the ZK space. Lastly, they dive deeper into the 0xPARC ecosystem by exploring the public goods and research projects 0xPARC has in the works from their support of application level R&D on decentralized systems to experimental applications of ZK for end-user facing apps. Here are some links for this episode: Ep141 - ZK & Games: Dark Forest w Brian Gu Ep221 - Funding the next wave of ZK Tech 0xPARC.org website learn.0xparc.org GR13 #zkTech side round Ethereum University Dark Forest game Gubsheep’s 6 ZK Moonshot ideas zkMessage Board Ecne Project Grant Circom Project Grant ZK Data Mark

No full episode this week! ZKV presents Privacy in Cosmos - April 15 - is here: https://www.events.zkvalidator.com/ Zk Summit - April 21 - is here: https://www.zksummit.com/ _Note: Both are sold out, if you can't make it, let us know and keep an eye on our Youtube Channel, we will be streaming both events there! _ And do check out our linktree to see all the links many of our ZK Channels https://linktr.ee/zeroknowledge

This week, Anna & Tarun catch up with Georgios Konstantopoulos from Paradigm - a well-known OG crypto VC. They chat about his move to CTO at the firm, the team he has built and what they are working on. Then they dive into Foundry - a fast, portable, modular testing toolkit for Ethereum app dev written in Rust. They discuss the tooling landscape, why Foundry is making a bet on solidity, the different types of testing that developers are doing and other open questions in the field. Here are some links for the episode: Foundry on Github Ep.142 Hasu & Georgios on BTC Sec. & Elastic Block Size Learning Foundry Truffle Suite Hard Hat dAppTools Brownie Vyper Lang Arbitrum Some of Georgios' collaborators mentioned: @samczsun @brockjelmore @FrankieIsLost @onbjerg @mattsse_ On April 15th in Amsterdam, ZKValidator is hosting ‘Privacy in Cosmos’ - the 4th installation in a series of events funded by the Cosmos Hub. Sign up: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/privacy-in-cosmos-live-in-amsterdam-

This week, Anna chats with Deborah Simpier and Justin Kilpatrick, co-founders of Althea and the team working on Gravity Bridge. They start with the history of the Althea project and how they aim to build an open marketplace for independent entities to create their own ISPs, providing bandwidth to users in under-connected areas. They then dive into the larger topic of bridges and the work being done on Gravity Bridge – a bridge that links Ethereum with IBC and the Cosmos ecosystem. They touch on the larger bridge landscape in Cosmos, the new initiatives and challenges that come with a multichain architecture, the opportunities and hazards of the current wave of stakedrop airdrops in Cosmos, Gravity's roadmap and more! Here are some links for the episode: Episode 207: Journey Through the Cosmos Ecosystem with Billy Rennekamp Gravity Bridge Althea Everything You Need to Know About the Gravity Bridge Chain Twitter Spaces: Gravity Bridge Community Call and AMA ZKValidator presents Privacy in Cosmos: Sc

This week, Anna and Tarun chat with Jill Gunter and Ben Fisch from Espresso Systems. Espresso recently went public with their Proof-of-Stake Layer 1 blockchain, developed with flexible private applications and ZK rollups in mind. In this conversation, they explore the founding and development of the project, the Espresso chain and CAPE - a wrapped privacy smart contract application that is designed to be deployed on Espresso. They also discuss the programming model, the evolution of privacy technology, what configurable or flexible privacy means, the Espresso roadmap and more. Here are some links for the episode: Episode 88: Accumulators with Ben Fisch Episode 191: ZKPs & the Dichotomy of Privacy vs Transparency with Josh & Jill Episode 208: Digging into Data Availability with Ismail Khoffi from Celestia Fraud and Data Availability Proofs: Maximising Light Client Security and Scaling Blockchains with Dishonest Majorities Episode 219: Scaling Ethereum with Polygon’s Mihailo Bjelic ZKValidator a

This week Anna dives into the topic of funding in the ZK space. She chats with a number of different groups who are all funding zero knowledge technology from different angles. She kicks off the conversation with her colleague from ZKValidator Susannah Evans and Gubsheep from 0xPARC about the Gitcoin side round they are leading which is focused on funding the next wave of ZK tech projects. She then chats with Arjun Karlsy, VP of Growth at Polygon about their massive commitment of 1 billion into ZK through investments, acquisitions, and grants. Following this, she catches up with Alex Pruden, CEO at Aleo to talk about their soon to launch grant program – Zprize, an industry-wide effort to accelerate zero knowledge technology. And lastly, she speaks with Alistair Stewart from the Web3 Foundation about a newly announced ZK component of the Polkadot Pioneers Prize. Here are some links for the episode: ZK Tech Gitcoin GR13 Side Round Live on 9th March Gitcoin GR13: ZKTech Matching Round 0xPARC on Twitter ZKV

This week, Anna chats with Brendan Farmer and Daniel Lubarov from Polygon Zero, formerly known as Mir, about their early experiments with different proving systems, their work combining PLONK and Halo called Plonky - as well as the more recent combination of PLONK plus FRI (a technique that is borrowed from STARKs) which makes up Plonky2. They discuss why these innovations matter, what the new paradigms enable within the Ethereum ecosystem, their goal to provide privacy and scalability for blockchains, their recent acquisition by Polygon and more. Here are some links for the episode: Polygon Zero Introducing Plonky2 Episode 194: zkEVM with Jordi & David from Hermez Episode 210: The Road to STARKs and Miden with Bobbin Threadbare Episode 219: Scaling Ethereum with Polygon’s Mihailo Bjelic Episode 179: Diving into Arbitrum’s Optimistic Rollup Episode 32: Zero Knowledge at Zcon0! Tweet thread about Goldilocks field [EIP-4488: Transaction calldata gas cost reduction with total calldata limit](EIP-4488: Tr

This week, Anna chats with Mihailo Bjelic one of the co-founders of Polygon. Mihailo takes us through the evolution of Polygon and how the promise of web3 has led them to betting big on ZK-focused technologies. We learn about their approach to the two main challenges within their mission to scaling Ethereum – security and data availability; and how their suite of products aims to tackle these. Lastly, we hear about what’s next on the Polygon roadmap to onboarding the first billion to Ethereum – for the products themselves and the ecosystem as a whole. Here are some links for the episode: Episode 194: zkEVM with Jordi & David from Hermez Episode 210: The Road to STARKs and Miden with Bobbin Threadbare Polygon's scaling solutions The Data Availability Problem The Polygon Thesis: Strategic Focus on ZK Technology as the Next Major Chapter for Polygon; $1B Treasury Allocation ZKVerse: Polygon’s Zero Knowledge Strategy Explained If you’re looking to jump into ZK professionally – head over to the ZK

This week, Anna chats with Dean Tribble, co-founder and CEO of Agoric. Dean walks us through the landscape of programming languages and Agoric’s philosophy behind building a blockchain that has Hardened JS as its smart contract language. We hear about the two big challenges in using JavaScript in blockchain development, malleability and non-deterministic, and how Agoric addresses these. Dean explains the security implications of many popular blockchain languages and how this led them to build Agoric’s smart contract infrastructure allowing JavaScript functions to run with specific access control – leaving the money management to the larger framework. We touch on what to expect from the upcoming development phases of Agoric, various bridging partnerships to come, and last but not least – if, when and how they envision ZK roll-ups getting implemented into the stack. Here are some links for the episode: Zcon0 episode Agoric's website Agoric Token and Crypto Economy White Paper SF Cryptocurrency Devs: Ag