Zero Knowledge

Latest Episodes:

Exploring ZK Research with Jens Groth Jul 06, 2022

Show notes

In this week’s episode, Anna and Kobi chat with guest Jens Groth, Director of Research at DFINITY and previously a professor in the Department of Computer Science at UCL. Jens Groth is a leading ZK researcher and is behind a number of advances in the field of ZK in the last few years such as the popular proving system Groth16. The conversation covers his earlier career, the cryptographic problems he tackled in his research, how he solved these, the results of this work as well as his move from research into industry and what he works on today.

Here are some links for this episode:

Check out the Zero Knowledge Podcast linktree to stay up-to-date on all the ZK-focused channels and events in our ecosystem

Today’s episode is sponsored by Anoma

Anoma is a suite of protocols that enable self-sovereign coordination. Their unique architecture facilitates efficiently the simplest forms of economic coordination such as two parties transferring an asset to each other. As well as more sophisticated ones like an asset agnostic bartering system involving multiple parties without direct “coincidence of wants”; or even more complex ones such as “N-party” collective commitments to solve multipolar traps – where any interaction can be performed with adjustable zero-knowledge privacy.

Visit Anoma to learn more!

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
Head to the ZK Community Forum
Support our Gitcoin Grant

Read transcript

Aztec Connect and Private DeFi with Charlie and Joe Jun 29, 2022

Show notes

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:

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 Aleo.

Aleo is a new Layer-1 blockchain that achieves the programmability of Ethereum, the privacy of Zcash, and the scalability of a rollup. If you’re building private applications - then check out Aleo’s programming language called Leo which enables non-cryptographers to harness the power of ZKPs. Visit leo-lang.org to start building.

You can also participate in Aleo’s incentivized testnet3 by downloading and running a snarkOS node. No sign-up is necessary to participate. For questions, join their Discord at [aleo.org/discord](aleo.org/discord)

If you like what we do:

Find all our links here!

Subscribe to our podcast newsletter

Join us on Telegram

Catch us on Youtube

Head to the ZK Community Forum

Support our Gitcoin Grant

Read transcript

Mathematical Journeys & Sake with Guillermo Angeris Jun 22, 2022

Show notes

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:

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 content producer over on the ZK jobs board.

Learn more and apply here.

Today’s episode is sponsored by Anoma

Visit Anoma to learn more!

If you like what we do:

Find all our links here! @ZeroKnowledge | Linktree

Subscribe to our podcast newsletter

Join us on Telegram

Catch us on Youtube

Head to the ZK Community Forum

Support our Gitcoin Grant

Read transcript

zkEVM with Scroll’s Ye Zhang and Haichen Shen Jun 15, 2022

Show notes

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:

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 sponsored by Anoma

Visit Anoma to learn more!

If you like what we do:

Find all our links here! @ZeroKnowledge | Linktree

Subscribe to our podcast newsletter

Join us on Telegram

Catch us on Youtube

Head to the ZK Community Forum

Support our Gitcoin Grant

Read transcript

Through the Wormhole with Jump Crypto Jun 08, 2022

Show notes

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:

The ZK Tech side round on Gitcoin starts today and runs until June 23rd.

During this CLR matching round funds that are donated to the ZK tech side round are matched from our 100K matching pool. This initiative is led by 0xPARC and zkValidator, as well as our fantastic matching partners from the ecosystem.

Visit gitcoin.co to get your grant in and choose the tag ZK tech to be eligible to our matching pool.

Today’s episode is sponsored by Anoma

Visit Anoma to learn more.

If you like what we do:

Find all our links here! @ZeroKnowledge | Linktree

Subscribe to our podcast newsletter

Join us on Telegram

Catch us on Youtube

Head to the ZK Community Forum

Support our Gitcoin Grant

Read transcript

Cutting Edge ZK Research with Mary Maller Jun 01, 2022

Show notes

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:

Check out the @ZeroKnowledge Linktree to find our community links and stay in the loop on upcoming events & more!

If you're building something ZK and could benefit from some early funding – ZKValidator and 0xPARC bring you another ZK Tech Side Round on Gitcoin - GR14. This round has at least $100K in matching pool. The round starts on June 8th and runs for two weeks.

Matching is based on your quadratic voting score (lots of small donations are better than a few big ones). Be sure to choose the tag #zktech to be eligible!

Today's episode is sponsored by Penumbra.

Penumbra is a cross-chain shielded pool and decentralized exchange, allowing users to shield assets from any IBC connected chain and privately transact stake, swap and market make without revealing their personal information or trading strategies to the world.

Visit penumbra.zone to learn more, use the Testnet, and join their discord.

If you like what we do:

Find all our links here! @ZeroKnowledge | Linktree

Subscribe to our podcast newsletter

Join us on Telegram

Catch us on Youtube

Head to the ZK Community Forum

Support our Gitcoin Grant

Read transcript

Argent’s Smart Contract Wallet Design with Julien Niset May 25, 2022

Show notes

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:

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 proofs are used to present and publicly record the validity and correctness of the rolled transfers processed on the Ethereum blockchain.

Visit polygon.technology to learn more about Polygon Hermez and other Polygon solutions.

If you like what we do:

Find all our links here!

Subscribe to our podcast newsletter

Join us on Telegram

Catch us on Youtube

Head to the ZK Community Forum

Support our Gitcoin Grant

Read transcript

Designing Optimistic Interoperability with Nomad May 18, 2022

Show notes

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:

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 the ad here.

Today’s episode is sponsored by Polygon Hermez.

The Polygon Hermez zk-rollup is a layer 2 built on top of Ethereum that solves scalability issues through mass transfer processing rolled into a single transaction. ZKPs are used to present and publicly record the validity and correctness of the rolled transfers processed on the Ethereum blockchain. By storing just the proof and the compressed data of a batch of transfers, the efficiency and the throughput of the network is multiplied.

Visit polygon.technology to learn more about Polygon Hermez and other Polygon solutions.

If you like what we do:

Subscribe to our podcast newsletter

Join us on Telegram

Catch us on Youtube

Head to the ZK Community Forum

Support our Gitcoin Grant

Read transcript

Going Cross-Chain with Polkadot’s XCM May 11, 2022

Show notes

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:

If you are looking to jump into ZK professionally, check out the ZK Jobs Board to find openings 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

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!

Today’s episode is sponsored by Polygon Miden.

Polygon Miden is layer 2 scaling solution for Ethereum. Miden relies on ZK-STARKs to roll-up thousands of layer 2 transactions into a single Ethereum transaction, increasing throughput and reducing fees.

At the heart of Polygon Miden is Miden VM, a Turing-complete STARK-based virtual machine which provides a level of safety and support of advanced features currently not available on Ethereum.

Visit polygon.technology to learn more about Polygon Miden and other Polygon solutions.

If you like what we do:

Subscribe to our podcast newsletter

Join us on Telegram

Catch us on Youtube

Head to the ZK Community Forum

Support our Gitcoin Grant

Read transcript

Catch-up at DevConnect AMS with Tarun, Guillermo and Brendan May 04, 2022

Show notes

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!

https://jobsboard.zeroknowledge.fm/job/144/junior-blockchain-researcher/

Today’s episode is sponsored by Zcash Community Grants.

Zcash Community Grants is a grants program within the Zcash ecosystem that funds projects that advance the usability, security, privacy, and adoption of Zcash. Their primary areas of focus include wallets, core and security, interoperability, Zcash apps, ongoing services, education, ecosystem, and community. Previously awarded grants have ranged in size and scope - from a $3,000 grant to a $1.2M dollar grant.

To apply for a Zcash Community Grant and contribute towards the development of the Zcash protocol, visit the Zcash Grants Hub at zcashgrants.org.

If you like what we do:

Subscribe to our podcast newsletter

Join us on Telegram

Catch us on Youtube

Head to the ZK Community Forum

Support our Gitcoin Grant

Read transcript