Zero Knowledge

Latest Episodes:

Using Formal Verification on ZK Systems with Jon Stephens Jul 12, 2023

Show notes

This week Anna Rose chats with Jon Stephens, Computer Science Ph.D. student in the UToPiA group at UT Austin and co-founder of Veridise. Veridise is a blockchain auditing firm that audits smart contracts and ZK systems. They discuss what led Jon to work on system security, what tools are available to test the security of ZK systems and the process of performing formal verification on ZK systems. They also cover general ZK security, why this topic matters and ways we can incentivise ethical disclosures when bugs and vulnerabilities are found.

Additional reading for this week's episode;

zkSummit 10 is happening in London on September 20, 2023! Apply to attend now -> zkSummit 10 Application Form

Polygon Labs is thrilled to announce Polygon 2.0: The Value Layer for the Internet.

Polygon 2.0 and all of our ZK tech is open-source and community-driven. Reach out to the Polygon community on Discord to learn more, contribute, or join in and build the future of Web3 together with Polygon!

Anoma’s first fractal instance, Namada, is launching soon!

The MASP circuit's latest update enables shielded set rewards directly in the shielded set, a novel feature that funds privacy as a public good.

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
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BabyAGI, Agents and Cutting-edge AI with Yohei Jul 05, 2023

Show notes

This week, host Anna Rose and co-host Kobi Gurkan chat with Yohei Nakajima, General Partner at Untapped Capital and creator of BabyAGI. They cover a wide variety of topics from the world of AGIs and agents to building no-code software in public. They kick-off with a chat about how Yohei’s interest in NFTs led him down the AI ‘rabbit hole’ and how he started to build out experiments in public that have inspired a new group of AI tools and projects.

They wrap up with a discussion about the possible impacts of some of this AI tech, how ZK may help mediate the challenges it introduces and more.

Here’s some additional links for this episode;

Check out the Modular Summit here: https://modularsummit.dev/

zkSummit 10 is happening in London on September 20, 2023! Apply to attend now -> zkSummit 10 Application Form

Anoma’s first fractal instance, Namada, is launching soon!

Namada is a proof-of-stake L1 for interchain asset-agnostic privacy. Namada natively interoperates with fast-finality chains via IBC and with Ethereum via a trustless two-way bridge.

For privacy, Namada deploys an upgraded version of the multi-asset shielded pool (MASP) circuit that allows all assets (fungible and non-fungible) to share a common shielded set – this removes the size limits of the anonymity set and provides the best privacy guarantees possible for every user in the multichain.

The MASP circuit's latest update enables shielded set rewards directly in the shielded set, a novel feature that funds privacy as a public good.

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

Error Correcting Codes & Information Theory with Ron Rothblum Jun 28, 2023

Show notes

This week, host Anna Rose and Nico Mohnblatt chat with Ron Rothblum, Professor of Computer Science at Technion. They explore information theory and ZK, diving into the weeds on multiple topics including error correcting codes, FRI, FFTs, Reed-Solomon encoding, Fiat-Shamir and more.

Here’s some additional links for this episode:

zkSummit 10 is happening in London on September 20, 2023! Apply to attend now -> https://9lcje6jbgv1.typeform.com/zkSummit10

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

Interested in building private applications? Check out Aleo’s programming language called Leo that enables non-cryptographers to harness the power of ZKPs to deploy decentralized exchanges, hidden information games, regulated stablecoins, and more. Visit http://developer.aleo.org.

For questions, join their Discord at aleo.org/discord.

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

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Exploring Lurk: a New Language for Recursive zk-SNARKs Jun 21, 2023

Show notes

In this week’s episode, host Anna Rose chats with Chhi'mèd Künzang and François Garillot from Lurk Labs about all things Lurk, Lisp and zk languages.

They discuss the history of the Lurk project, from its beginnings with Protocol Labs (the team that built Filecoin), to its emergence as a Turing-complete programming language for recursive zkSNARKs.

They discuss Lurk’s relationship with Lisp, what Lisp is, and how developers familiar with that family of languages would be able to interact with Lurk. They then discuss how Lurk compares to other zkDSLs and the new innovations this Lisp-based language brings to the table.

Here’s some additional links for this episode:

Programming Languages

Lurk Links

Additional Reading/Listening

Ever feel like developing zero-knowledge proofs is a daunting task?

The team at RISC Zero is here to remind you that it doesn't have to be that way. Their out-of-the-box tooling allows developers to access the magic of ZK proofs from any chain without needing to learn custom languages or building custom zk circuits.

Bonsai, RISC Zero’s most anticipated product, is a proving marketplace that enables any protocol or application to leverage fast ZKProofs in languages like Rust, Go, C++.

Visit https://r0.link/ZKpodcast to learn more and sign up today for the Bonsai waitlist.

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

ProtoStar with Benedikt Bünz and Binyi Chen Jun 14, 2023

Show notes

In this week’s episode, Anna Rose dives back into accumulation schemes with Benedikt Bünz and Binyi Chen from Espresso Systems. They discuss ProtoStar and how it compares to works such as Nova and HyperNova, as well as explore some definitions for commonly used terms in the accumulation literature.

Here’s some additional links for this episode:

Check out the ZK Jobs Board here: ZK Jobs. Find your next job working in ZK!

Aztec Network is building a next-generation encrypted blockchain powered by Ethereum.

The team is proud to announce Noir - the world's first universal zk-language. Noir makes it safe and intuitive to write zk circuits and encrypted smart contracts, enabling novel use-cases like encrypted DeFi, private governance, and zk gaming.

As a universal language, Noir is domain-specific, but blockchain agnostic. Build powerful zk applications compatible with multiple proving systems and verify your program on any EVM chain.

Get started with Noir today at docs.aztec.network/noir

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

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Bonus: zkpod.ai & Attested Audio Experiment with Daniel Kang Jun 13, 2023

Show notes

In this bonus episode, Anna jumps back on the mic for a quick follow-up to Episode 279: Intro to zkpod.ai. Guest Daniel Kang describes a joint project he is doing with zkpod.ai - the Attested Audio Experiment. The objective is to prove that some piece of audio originates from a "real" (non-ai-generated) recording, even if this audio has been altered through edits or modifications. The goal is to differentiate between original "real" audio and the audio generated by zkpod.ai. In the future some iteration of this architecture could be used by content creators to distinguish deepfake audio from the real thing.

Here is the write up about the Attested Audio Experiment on Daniel Kang's blog.

Here is some of his other work as well:

Follow @zkpodai on twitter for more updates!

Intro to zkpod.ai with Anna and Kobi Jun 07, 2023

Show notes

This week, Anna Rose and Kobi Gurkan continue their conversation with a full episode dedicated to their new side project zkpod.ai - the voice ai trained on transcripts from this show which uses both Anna and Kobi’s voices to share insights and answer questions about zk topics. They cover the origin of the project and discuss their motivations and concerns around its uses as well as how they could see the project developing and what this could mean for the field of zk. Kobi shares his thoughts on the current tooling available, where this could progress and potential limitations it holds.

Additional links mentioned in this episode:

Check out the ZK Jobs Board here: ZK Jobs. Find your next job working in ZK!

Anoma’s first fractal instance, Namada, is launching soon!

Namada is a proof-of-stake L1 for interchain asset-agnostic privacy. Namada natively interoperates with fast-finality chains via IBC and with Ethereum via a trustless two-way bridge.

The MASP circuit's latest update enables shielded set rewards directly in the shielded set, a novel feature that funds privacy as a public good.

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

Zero-knowledge is changing the world and until now, building ZK applications meant learning new, chain-specific languages and complex cryptography. But no more!

With SnarkyJS, the easiest to use zk SDK, developers can add the magic of zk to their apps using TypeScript!

Whether you're targeting Mina, the leading zk-native blockchain, or off-chain applications, [SnarkyJS](snarkyjs.o1labs.org) from O(1) Labs has you covered. With support for infinite recursion, in-browser proving, and so much more, the full power of zk is available to everyone.

Visit [snarkyjs.o1labs.org](snarkyjs.o1labs.org) to get started.

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 State of ZK with Anna and Kobi May 31, 2023

Show notes

In this week’s episode, host Anna Rose and Kobi Gurkan check in on the state of ZK today. They discuss recent ZK applications and tooling as well as developments from the last 6 months. They review new use cases such as ZK for off-chain computations and dive into research breakthroughs, trends, security and much more. Finally, they introduce the concept of zkpod.ai which will be covered fully in next week's episode.

Additional links mentioned in this episode:

Check out the ZK Jobs Board here: ZK Jobs. Find your next job working in ZK!

Ever feel like developing zero-knowledge proofs is a daunting task?

The team at RISC Zero is here to remind you that it doesn't have to be that way. Their out-of-the-box tooling allows developers to access the magic of ZKProofs from any chain without needing to learn custom languages or building custom ZK circuits.

Bonsai, RISC Zero’s most anticipated product, is a proving marketplace that enables any protocol or application to leverage fast ZKProofs in languages like Rust, Go, C++.

Visit https://r0.link/ZKpodcast to learn more and sign up today for the Bonsai waitlist.

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

For questions, join their Discord at aleo.org/discord.

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

Nova and Beyond with Srinath Setty May 24, 2023

Show notes

In today’s episode, Anna Rose and Nico Mohnblatt interview Srinath Setty, Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research and author of notable works such as Spartan, Nova, SuperNova, and HyperNova. This discussion covers Setty's early work and how this led to him working on SNARKs, folding schemes and sumcheck protocols, as well as his views on the future trajectory of the ZK space.

Given the current chatter around Nova-style accumulation schemes, this interview offers a chance to explore the perspective of a key contributor behind these developments.

Here’s some additional links for this episode:

Check out the ZK Jobs Board here: ZK Jobs. Find your next job working in ZK!

Zero-knowledge is changing the world and until now, building ZK applications meant learning new, chain-specific languages and complex cryptography. But no more!

With SnarkyJS, the easiest to use zk SDK, developers can add the magic of zk to their apps using TypeScript!

Whether you're targeting Mina, the leading zk-native blockchain, or off-chain applications, SnarkyJS from O(1) Labs has you covered. With support for infinite recursion, in-browser proving, and so much more, the full power of zk is available to everyone.

Visit [snarkyjs.o1labs.org](snarkyjs.o1labs.org) to get started.

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

Expanding Computation on Ethereum with Axiom May 17, 2023

Show notes

In this week’s episode, Anna sits down with Yi Sun, co-founder of Axiom. Yi was recently on the show to discuss ZK ML’s, however this time they take a closer look at the Axiom project and what it means to be a ZK coprocessor for Ethereum. During the interview they also explore what problems Axiom are trying to solve, how ZKPs are used to help bring historic data into smart contracts and what new use cases this architecture can support.

Here’s some additional links for this episode:

Check out the ZK Jobs Board here: ZK Jobs. Find your next job working in ZK!

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

For questions, join their Discord at aleo.org/discord.

If you like what we do: