Technology
**Zero Knowledge**

Zero Knowledge is a podcast which goes deep into the tech that will power the emerging decentralised web and the community building this. Covering the latest in zero knowledge research and applications, the open web as well as future technologies and paradigms that promise to change the way we interact — and transact — with one another online.
Zero Knowledge is hosted by Anna Rose
Follow the show at @ZeroKnowledgefm (https://twitter.com/zeroknowledgefm) or @AnnaRRose (https://twitter.com/AnnaRRose)
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Latest Episodes:

Discovering New Elliptic Curves with Antonio Sanso and Youssef El Housni May 15, 2024

Show notes

Summary

This 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:

Check out the latest jobs in ZK at the ZK Podcast Jobs Board.

The next ZK Hack IRL is happening May 17-19 in Kraków, there’s still time to join at zkkrakow.com.

Namada is the shielded asset hub rewarding you to protect the multichain.

Built to give you full control over sharing your personal information, Namada brings data protection to existing assets, applications, and networks. Namada ends the era of transparency by default, enabling shielded transfers and shielded cross-chain actions to protect your data even when interacting with transparent chains.

Learn more and follow Namada mainnet launch at namada.net.

If you like what we do:

Find all our links here! @ZeroKnowledge | Linktree
Subscribe to our podcast newsletter
Follow us on Twitter @zeroknowledgefm
Join us on Telegram
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The Role of Reth with Georgios May 08, 2024

Show notes

Summary

This 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:

Check out the latest jobs in ZK at the ZK Podcast Jobs Board.

The next ZK Hack IRL is happening May 17-19 in Kraków, apply to join now at zkkrakow.com.

o1Labs is excited to announce the v1 release of o1js, THE fastest way to build zkApps and

deploy to the Mina blockchain.

After 2 years and 70,000 downloads, o1js v1 is the enterprise-grade

Typescript zkDSL the community has been waiting for.

Are you ready to build the next killer zkApp? Then visit o1js.org and get started today.

Aleo is a new Layer-1 blockchain that achieves the programmability of Ethereum, the privacy of Zcash, and the scalability of a rollup.

As Aleo is gearing up for their mainnet launch in Q1, this is an invitation to be part of a transformational ZK journey.

Dive deeper and discover more about Aleo at http://aleo.org/

If you like what we do:

Find all our links here! @ZeroKnowledge | Linktree
Subscribe to our podcast newsletter
Follow us on Twitter @zeroknowledgefm
Join us on Telegram
Catch us on YouTube

Read transcript

Definitions, Security and Sumcheck in ZK Systems with Justin Thaler May 01, 2024

Show notes

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:

The next ZK Hack IRL is happening May 17-19 in Kraków, apply to join now at zkkrakow.com

Launching soon, Namada is a proof-of-stake L1 blockchain focused on multichain, asset-agnostic privacy, via a unified shielded set. Namada is natively interoperable with fast-finality chains via IBC, and with Ethereum using a trust-minimised bridge.

Follow Namada on Twitter @namada for more information and join the community on Discord discord.gg/namada.

Aleo is a new Layer-1 blockchain that achieves the programmability of Ethereum, the privacy of Zcash, and the scalability of a rollup.

Dive deeper and discover more about Aleo at http://aleo.org/

If you like what we do:

Find all our links here! @ZeroKnowledge | Linktree
Subscribe to our podcast newsletter
Follow us on Twitter @zeroknowledgefm
Join us on Telegram
Catch us on YouTube

Read transcript

STIR with Gal Arnon & Giacomo Fenzi Apr 24, 2024

Show notes

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:

The next ZK Hack IRL is happening May 17-19 in Kraków, apply to join now at zkkrakow.com

Aleo is a new Layer-1 blockchain that achieves the programmability of Ethereum, the privacy of Zcash, and the scalability of a rollup.

Dive deeper and discover more about Aleo at http://aleo.org/

If you like what we do:

Find all our links here! @ZeroKnowledge | Linktree
Subscribe to our podcast newsletter
Follow us on Twitter @zeroknowledgefm
Join us on Telegram
Catch us on YouTube

Read transcript

A Deep Dive into Shared Sequencers with Espresso’s Ben Fisch Apr 17, 2024

Show notes

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:

The next ZK Hack IRL is happening May 17-19 in Kraków, apply to join now at zkkrakow.com.

Launching soon, Namada is a proof-of-stake L1 blockchain focused on multichain, asset-agnostic privacy, via a unified shielded set. Namada is natively interoperable with fast-finality chains via IBC, and with Ethereum using a trust-minimised bridge.

Follow Namada on Twitter @namada for more information and join the community on Discord discord.gg/namada.

Aleo is a new Layer-1 blockchain that achieves the programmability of Ethereum, the privacy of Zcash, and the scalability of a rollup.

Dive deeper and discover more about Aleo at http://aleo.org/.

If you like what we do:

Find all our links here! @ZeroKnowledge | Linktree
Subscribe to our podcast newsletter
Follow us on Twitter @zeroknowledgefm
Join us on Telegram
Catch us on YouTube

Read transcript

The Past & Present of the L2 Landscape with Jordi Baylina Apr 10, 2024

Show notes

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:

The next ZK Hack IRL is happening May 17-19 in Kraków, apply to join now at zkkrakow.com

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, register on gevulot.com and write “Zk Podcast” in the note field of the registration form!

Aleo is a new Layer-1 blockchain that achieves the programmability of Ethereum, the privacy of Zcash, and the scalability of a rollup.

Dive deeper and discover more about Aleo at http://aleo.org/

If you like what we do:

Find all our links here! @ZeroKnowledge | Linktree
Subscribe to our podcast newsletter
Follow us on Twitter @zeroknowledgefm
Join us on Telegram

Read transcript

Threshold Signature Schemes & FROST with Chelsea Komlo Apr 03, 2024

Show notes

In this week’s episode, Anna and Nico chat with Chelsea Komlo, Chief Scientist for the Zcash Foundation and member of the Cryptography, Security, and Privacy lab at the University of Waterloo.

They discuss what sparked Chelsea’s interest in cryptography research, starting with her work contributing to Tor, to her move to Zcash and her PhD work on Threshold Signature Schemes. They define some important terms around different signature schemes and discuss possible optimizations that can be used to make these more performant. They then dive into her work on the FROST Threshold Signature Scheme plus some new upcoming work.

Here’s some additional links for this episode:

zkSummit11 is happening next week, head to the zkSummit website to apply for a waitlist spot now. The event will be held on 10 April in Athens, Greece.

Check out the ZK Jobs Board

Aleo is a new Layer-1 blockchain that achieves the programmability of Ethereum, the privacy of Zcash, and the scalability of a rollup.

Dive deeper and discover more about Aleo at http://aleo.org/

If you like what we do:

Find all our links here! @ZeroKnowledge | Linktree
Subscribe to our podcast newsletter
Follow us on Twitter @zeroknowledgefm
Join us on Telegram
Catch us on YouTube

Read transcript

Enhancing On-Chain Intelligence with Ritual Mar 27, 2024

Show notes

This week, Anna and Tarun chat with Niraj Pant and Anish Agnihotri from Ritual. They kick off by revisiting the AIxCrypto intersection before diving into the Ritual product and its goals around developing open access AI infrastructure. They explore the opportunities that open up when you bring ML to smart contracts.

Here’s some additional links for this episode:

zkSummit11 happens in 2 weeks, if you haven’t got your tickets yet head over to the zkSummit website to apply now. The event will be held on 10 April in Athens, Greece.

Check out the ZK Jobs Board

Aleo is a new Layer-1 blockchain that achieves the programmability of Ethereum, the privacy of Zcash, and the scalability of a rollup.

Dive deeper and discover more about Aleo at http://aleo.org/

If you like what we do:

Find all our links here! @ZeroKnowledge | Linktree
Subscribe to our podcast newsletter
Follow us on Twitter @zeroknowledgefm
Join us on Telegram
Catch us on YouTube

Read transcript

Alin Tomescu on Distributed On-chain Randomness and Keyless Accounts Mar 20, 2024

Show notes

In this week’s episode, Anna and Nico chat with Alin Tomescu, founding team member and Head of Cryptography at Aptos Labs. They discuss Alin’s journey to Aptos and his work on distributed on-chain randomness as well as the new Aptos Keyless project. They cover the Keyless accounts architecture, how the flow works for the user and some of the subtleties in the approach they have taken.

Here’s some additional links for this episode:

Check out the ZK Jobs Board

Applications to attend zkSummit11 are now open, head over to the zkSummit website to apply now. The event will be held on 10 April in Athens, Greece.

Launching soon, Namada is a proof-of-stake L1 blockchain focused on multichain, asset-agnostic privacy, via a unified shielded set. Namada is natively interoperable with fast-finality chains via IBC, and with Ethereum using a trust-minimised bridge.

Follow Namada on Twitter @namada for more information and join the community on Discord discord.gg/namada.

If you like what we do:

Find all our links here! @ZeroKnowledge | Linktree
Subscribe to our podcast newsletter
Follow us on Twitter @zeroknowledgefm
Join us on Telegram
Catch us on YouTube

Read transcript

ZK Hack Ecosystem & Winners of ZK Hack IV Mar 13, 2024

Show notes

This week’s episode is a little different from the usual and is split into two parts with Anna and Kobi exploring the history of ZK Hack, its origins and how the event has evolved into what it is today, including current activity in the ZK Hack ecosystem. The second half of the show splits off into Anna and Nico chatting the top 3 hackers from ZK Hack IV Online, which wrapped back in February. Each mini interview catches up with one of the winners and dives into what it was like to hack on the puzzles, which their favourites were and how they can be improved in the future.

Here’s some additional links for this episode:

Applications to attend zkSummit11 are now open, head over to the zkSummit website to apply now. The event will be held on 10 April in Athens, Greece.

Aleo is a new Layer-1 blockchain that achieves the programmability of Ethereum, the privacy of Zcash, and the scalability of a rollup.

This is an invitation to be part of a transformational ZK journey.

Dive deeper and discover more about Aleo at http://aleo.org/

If you like what we do:

Find all our links here! @ZeroKnowledge | Linktree
Subscribe to our podcast newsletter
Follow us on Twitter @zeroknowledgefm
Join us on Telegram
Catch us on YouTube

Read transcript

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Zero Knowledge

Summary

Summary

Launching soon, Namada is a proof-of-stake L1 blockchain focused on multichain, asset-agnostic privacy, via a unified shielded set. Namada is natively interoperable with fast-finality chains via IBC, and with Ethereum using a trust-minimised bridge.

Aleo is a new Layer-1 blockchain that achieves the programmability of Ethereum, the privacy of Zcash, and the scalability of a rollup.

Aleo is a new Layer-1 blockchain that achieves the programmability of Ethereum, the privacy of Zcash, and the scalability of a rollup.

Launching soon, Namada is a proof-of-stake L1 blockchain focused on multichain, asset-agnostic privacy, via a unified shielded set. Namada is natively interoperable with fast-finality chains via IBC, and with Ethereum using a trust-minimised bridge.

Aleo is a new Layer-1 blockchain that achieves the programmability of Ethereum, the privacy of Zcash, and the scalability of a rollup.

Gevulot is the first decentralized proving layer. With Gevulot, users can generate and verify proofs using any proof system, for any use case.

Aleo is a new Layer-1 blockchain that achieves the programmability of Ethereum, the privacy of Zcash, and the scalability of a rollup.

Aleo is a new Layer-1 blockchain that achieves the programmability of Ethereum, the privacy of Zcash, and the scalability of a rollup.

Aleo is a new Layer-1 blockchain that achieves the programmability of Ethereum, the privacy of Zcash, and the scalability of a rollup.

Launching soon, Namada is a proof-of-stake L1 blockchain focused on multichain, asset-agnostic privacy, via a unified shielded set. Namada is natively interoperable with fast-finality chains via IBC, and with Ethereum using a trust-minimised bridge.

Aleo is a new Layer-1 blockchain that achieves the programmability of Ethereum, the privacy of Zcash, and the scalability of a rollup.

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