Discussions about zero knowledge proofs, related cryptography and its applications.

Main

created a starter pack for folks building in ZK or programable cryptography 

please let me if i missed someone

created a starter pack for folks building in ZK or programable cryptography 

please let me if i missed someone 

https://warpcast.com/avichalp/pack/Builders-in-ZK-xt018x

Thank you zKurt @khem for the drive throughout those years.

Building MINA and executing on that httpz vision is an uphill marathon but achievable, and you've instrumentally helped set the right directions with your leadership

Today marks my departure from the Mina Foundation. It’s been an extraordinary journey, and I’m truly thankful to have been part of such an inspiring community dedicated to decentralization and privacy. A huge thank you to the Mina community, Mina supporters, developers, node…

Thank you zKurt @khem for the drive throughout those years.

Building MINA and executing on that httpz vision is an uphill marathon but achievable, and you've instrumentally helped set the right directions with your leadership

https://x.com/khem/status/1899574068782776512?s=19

Justin Thaler just published a post outlining a structured roadmap for zkVM development.

It separates “security stages” from “speed stages,” giving us a transparent way to track progress.

Read it here: https://a16zcrypto.com/posts/article/secure-efficient-zkvms-progress/

I would love for this to be true as I've worked on verifiable computation for many years.
But here are factors limiting its impact alone: 

1) It proves the output of computation on some data source, but doesn't help you verify quality/truthfulness of the data source (e.g.…

https://x.com/benafisch/status/1898483453940629955?s=46

@thepablob Tbf I feel like the magical element of zkTLS is how do you obtain a signature? The "verifying a signature in zk" is just making use of the killer application of zk. Seen in that lense I think zkTLS is more of a protocol that greatly take advantage of zk rather than a pure zk…

https://x.com/cryptodavidw/status/1898188021498867946?s=46

great intro to MPC in the head

https://blog.zksecurity.xyz/posts/mpcith-intro/

interesting to note that this doesn't follow the usual SNARK recipe that PIOP + PCS = SNARK

also different way to reason about soundness and zk

So what's new in folding implementations / client-side ZK? So many cool things. But here is a quick update.

1. We made an on-chain verifier that works in ~750,000 gas.. based on the work from PSE. 

Folding + cheap on-chain verification allows big / aggregated computations to trigger smart contracts cheaply.

Read:
https://www.novanet.xyz/blog/any-computation-is-verifiable-with-cheap-on-chain-folding-verifiers

2. 3x speed up seen from preliminary NeutronNova work.. ported to zkEngine this means 3 minutes proofs in browser are 1 minute proofs. All pre-webGPU. 🤯

Recent work also moves public param gen time from 24.3s to 3.2s.

We will be releasing a concept called "Proof Parties - have fun proving with you friends" in a week or two so.. Stay tuned ⏱️

PR:

So what's new in folding implementations / client-side ZK? So many cool things. But here is a quick update.

1. We made an on-chain verifier that works in ~750,000 gas.. based on the work from PSE. 

Folding + cheap on-chain verification allows big / aggregated computations to trigger smart contracts cheaply.

Read:
https://www.novanet.xyz/blog/any-computation-is-verifiable-with-cheap-on-chain-folding-verifiers

2. 3x speed up seen from preliminary NeutronNova work.. ported to zkEngine this means 3 minutes proofs in browser are 1 minute proofs. All pre-webGPU. 🤯

Recent work also moves public param gen time from 24.3s to 3.2s.

We will be releasing a concept called "Proof Parties - have fun proving with you friends" in a week or two so.. Stay tuned ⏱️

PR:

https://github.com/microsoft/Nova/pull/368

Wait @cassie so MPC in the head is a really fast proving scheme where you use GC to split up computation into an execution trace?

That’s very slick, need to dig in more

ipfs

A few weeks ago when the Safe frontend was compromised, there were a lot of conversations about how IPFS could have solved the issue, but also some potential failure points. One of those was IPFS Gateways. These are hosted IPFS nodes that retrieve content and return it to the person using the gateway, and a weakness is the possibility of someone compromising the gateway and returning ContentXYZ instead of the requested ContentABC. This made me wonder: what if we could prove the CID? 

I'm still in the early exploration phases of this project, but the idea is to run a ZK proof of the CID with the content that is retrieved from IPFS to generate a proof that can be verified by the client. Currently using SP1 by Succinct and it seems to be working 👀 Would love any comments or ideas on this! Repo linked below: 

https://github.com/stevedylandev/cid_proof

Cross posting here in case any ZK experts are interested; I have no idea what I'm doing lol

Just one q-n: Will you use an AI agent that knows everything you do? I doubt it...

Zero-knowledge proofs are the key to unlocking AI's true potential. Without ZK, agents are just stalkers with a privacy policy. 

Your bank balance and search history deserve better protection than that

this post has some great diagrams

https://doutv.notion.site/Jolt-Lasso-for-Newbies-1591aee049b480b7a44ad7d00e3e9265

https://github.com/tiktok-privacy-innovation/trustless-attestation-verification

nice example of using plonky3 directly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7v0Cr-cktg

Paper on security issue with GKR.

Curious for @samrags and @moodlezoup’s take

https://x.com/ronrothblum/status/1883723513607196978?s=46

https://youtu.be/ZYlkhL1l9lA?si=mE3TilgHnMhlmBHG&t=2157

https://warpcast.com/ryansmith/0x121c83ab

1/ The Number Theoretic Transform (NTT)

Why do cryptographers care about the Fourier transform? Because its finite-field version, the Number Theoretic Transform (NTT), enables fast polynomial operations—key to cryptographic protocols like STARKs.

Let’s break it down. 🧵👇

https://x.com/tcoratger/status/1895913237117616360