Anna Rose & Kobi Gurkan: Zero Knowledge Proofs – State of the ZK Ecosystem - Part 2 - podcast episode cover

Anna Rose & Kobi Gurkan: Zero Knowledge Proofs – State of the ZK Ecosystem - Part 2

Jan 05, 202348 minEp. 477
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Episode description

While Part 1 (#476) focused more on the general landscape of the ZK ecosystem, covering team updates and developments, in this episode, we take a closer look at specific use cases for ZK proofs and if the focus has shifted from privacy to blockchain scalability. Moreover, as the dusk of 2022 introduced chatGPT to the world, it seems only fitting to explore ZKP integrations in machine learning (ML).

In Part 2 of this 2-part episode, we were joined by Anna Rose, host of Zero Knowledge Podcast and founder of ZK Summit, ZK Validator and ZK Hack, and Kobi Gurkan, Head of Research at Geometry, to discuss current applications for ZK proofs and what narratives are going to shape 2023 for the ZK ecosystem.

Topics covered in this episode:

  • Applications and use cases for ZK proofs
  • ZK bridges
  • Audits and ZK security
  • ZKML (Machine Learning)
  • Succinctness vs. Privacy
  • 2023 predictions for the ZK ecosystem
  • Privacy - human right or concern?

Episode links:

Sponsors:

  • Tally Ho: Tally Ho is a new wallet for Web3 and DeFi that sees the wallet as a public good. Think of it like a community-owned alternative to MetaMask. - https://epicenter.rocks/tallycash

This episode is hosted by Friederike Ernst. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/477

Transcript

This is the second part of a two-part series on the state of the ZK ecosystem. And we're speaking with annerose, the founder of ZK podcast, they kzk Summit ZK, validator, ZK, hack, and probably a bunch of other zks, as well as As Kobe, Kobe gherkin, who is the head of research at geometry and works with Anna and seek a validator and seek a hack and is also cryptography, advised it Sealab.

If you've missed the first part of this double episode, go back to last week's and maybe start with that one because it is segue quite nicely from there without much further Ado. Let me tell you about our sponsors this week. Our sponsor this week as Tallyho. Kelly how is an open-source wallet, redefining the wallet as a public good with Teddy, how he can safely connect to defy and

web 3 plus a lot more. You can view a 10 ft is in the wallet across a theorem polygon optimism and a Bertram they have Ledger support. You can swap between assets and view. All of your account balances across in their portfolio tab. Currently, they're running a layer to Adventure that rewards users for exploring the arbitrary ecosystem. With hey Leo, you can get a space dog and ft and be entered into the giveaway for another nft head over to Terry dot cash and check it out.

And with that, let's head over to the second part of the interview with Kobe and Anna. So I think it might be a perfect time to start talking applications because I think that was where you wanted. You wanted to sort of hear some of these like novel, cool ideas, right? Absolutely, that's what I'm here for. All right. So yeah, we did before this

interview. We compiled a bit of a list and a lot of these are coming, by the way, from these interviews that we've done recently and like trying to pull together like what you know what Dan? For example, this interview we did with Dan Bonet. It was episode 56 like four weeks ago. The wrong number. Yeah, it's a good number but yeah, it's a real mess up. We in that he went through a bunch of examples so we can

definitely share those. I also know in the interview I did with Matt Greene, I learned about some new ideas and generally, I mean, look, if you look at what 0x park releases in their videos, when they do showcases, that's like an amazing space to find out about like new ideas and not at the truth is not all. Of them are feasible at this moment. I think. But still like, set the goal, like put the, you know, flag in the sand, in the future, and then, let's build those tools.

So we can actually make these things possible. I'm curious, if you've been keeping up to date on this Kobe, have you been paying attention to like Constitution doubt to just a bit? So like I like the concept of this Anonymous multisig. So That's kind of the what the new Clio team is doing so they're using privacy technology to like, one of the things that they're doing is to hide who

exactly participate in multisig. But Inquisition doubt, they using it to hide the total amount that you would be. Yeah, exactly. The using this to hide the amount that it would be because we don't know what happened with the first constitution though. We're just because the amount of public. It was just outbid and so yeah, I think they're using this in a very cool way to how to hide this, but yeah, that's the extent.

They know it. So yeah, this was the private Dows. One of the reasons for this was like and this is what we talked about in that episode with Dan was, you know, when you're doing bedding, when you're actually in an auction and you can see what other people have as their Max than it's pretty easy to win the auction and I think that's kind of what happened. So yeah, this is a cool. This is a really cool. Use case for this.

We do have penumbra which is like a privacy-preserving deck so that's like and there's been a lot. Like Manta also had proposed something like this. There's a lot. Different like ways to think about what in add X should be private and what can be private and what, maybe can't be private. And so those that's just been an interesting conversation space and like development space to Define that I think penumbra's

Solutions really cool. And I just in terms of status though, like, you know, they are still test Nets and like there's a lot to build before you can actually use these things. Maybe we can mention like some cool experiments that we've seen from Xerox, Parc, right. So I think one thing that was really cool. Was this hay and on experiment. So maybe you've seen that on Twitter, but they they've been taking these groups that maybe have some relation among the

people. So for example, all the people that participated in the Dow and got hacked, you know? So and And now, all of these people can send a message as a participant or as a member in that group without revealing who you are. So this is something that they've published which is which is really nice. Like you can you can do that and some other cool things that I think technically it's very advanced. That's called ethos actually. I don't remember what?

Okay, it's degree of separation. That's the the acronym. So it allows you to prove. Oh yeah, who you know? And like who that person knows? And so on. So how far in terms of the chain of people are you from vitalik? That was the demo of this, they did. So it uses actually like, recursive proofs and Extremely complex Machinery, inside snarks, to make that happen, and just to prove this degree of separation.

So that's something unique. And another cool experiment that they did was cabal, which allowed you to create these discs or channels or telegram channels. That have pseudonyms, that are derived from again a group Of people that, you know beforehand. But when they join the channel the nobody knows who they were from that group. So those are some cool experiments that we've seen. And I think we could also mention some of them experiments, right?

Yeah. So Dan told us about this project where they are trying to almost do like image provenance even after it's been cropped or changed, so trying to prove that. Like and I think the example are the use case here is like newspapers that will crop an image but you want to know that it actually is from an original Physically or a digital file or Digital Image.

And so there's a zkp to like, prove that it's actually from that original one and I know on our show we talked about maybe even extending this to music or to film and like being able to prove like if you edit film that it's connected to an earlier version of that video footage, which is pretty exciting. This is this is like one of these non-locking ones. There is another non blockchain. One to mention this is mentioned

on the episode. I did with Matt Greene where apparently, and I don't know any real details on this, but apparently, Google is looking to use EK PS2. Like comply with GDP are rules, but still use private data. So it's almost like to go around some of the privacy rules like using it to like oh we can make it private. Was you keep these? But like actually doing things that normally they wouldn't they shouldn't be doing right?

I don't know I actually don't know enough about this to cash that much shade, but yeah, I want to mention also like a project that is live, which uses it and that's his Mo. So we actually had them present, as you can hack, and actually create these attestation badges. It's pretty cool. Like it's, I don't know. Kobe. Do you want to, you want to go through how it works? I can help. Yeah, sure.

Actually, like, it's interesting because when they started out, like I was talking to the seasonal Founders and like, actually I think this is is when I was looking at the Stark mad. So I was doing a project based on blind signatures that allow you to get an attestation from like some issuer. But after you get this at the station, the issuer cannot track you anymore because you're blind it in the process.

So it was, it was a construction that I learned from privacy paths which is a project from cloudflare from years ago, and but I think nobody really played it in. This context. So that that was fun. And this is my people also created something of that sort when they started out and that's what allowed them to create these badges, which are privacy-preserving. So you have some issues that maybe you trust or put some

trust in but nobody can track. You not even them after you do that, but they have sense developed much more And they're using SDK and membership proofs. Like the ones that are others, like the cash and the projects on lithium Foundation are using and basically everyone that does privacy-preserving transfers and it's there now doing other kinds of at the stations and that have even less trusting them but still preserve.

This unlink ability properties. They seem to emerge like people kind of treat them like Poe apps but they have a month Christine. Yeah. Like something private and detached underneath which is cool. Yeah no this is most one of the projects we've been meaning to have one for a while. So yeah. Nice. Yeah. Other like so there's some there's some projects that have been around for a while like semaphore or CLR fund. Jill are funds like allowing you to do get coin?

Type donations but privately as far as I remember. Yeah and then I'm trying to think like there's two areas like well actually before I do that Kobe is there any other use cases that come to mind? I think we've covered our list. So yeah, I think the thing like maybe there's Worth to mention that there is a big group in this room Foundation. That's called like PSE like privacy is going Explorations. They're doing a lot of projects that push the boundaries in.

MZ K. So semaphore was in there, which allows for anonymous messaging were signaling more correctly. Sailor fund is based on Maisie, which is kind of a project that doesn't fit in the Box. Exactly of privacy or scalability because it is snarks to prevent collusion between people. And so it creates a more secure environment for voting. So that's that's really compelling. And there's, there's a bunch of other projects that are being work there.

So, for example, there is a zk0 pro, which combines private transactions with an optimistic roll-up kind of construction and generally the doing like cool things. But I know what was the question? You know, I need to ask you for any other use cases. I think what you're saying is like, if you want to find the good, use cases head to those places I think like, yeah. I think, keep watch it. Yeah.

Actually, as you're saying this, I was just thinking about, like so like any project that does EK like any network, they're going to have like a ZK, education arm and they're going to want, you know, like they're creating a lot of content and ideas for their network. But there are like these three Three groups. I think we count. ZK hack in that. It's like zika, hack, Xerox, Parc, and p, and p SE. Because like in that case, I guess PSE still invariance theorem and actually their ex

Parks variant theorem. But like generally, there's little bit more of a, like a neutrality for where, and how you could deploy these things. So they're just like ideas and libraries like things, you can probably rate recreate in other places and so yeah, it's definitely like my source for for use cases. So, there are two big there, two big topics, we haven't covered. And that's ZK. Bridges and Z km L, which is like the new very exciting field. People are jumping into.

Yeah, so maybe we can talk audits. It's also something that I really want to talk about for a bit cool. But ZK Bridges sounds good. So there's there's the 16th Bridge. It also came out of CR-X Park in a way. It's a little bit. It's a piece of infrastructure that most people didn't really expect, right? Can you talk about how it works? Yeah, happy too. So usually when you want to get the bridge like if you want the Holy Grail in some sense or at least something very, very good.

You want something, which is a light client Bridge so that you can verify the light Clan protocol of another chain inside your chain and that allows you to get really high guarantees. Because you don't trust, let's say like a multi, see great job of small Committee of Sign errors or in an optimistic Bridge, which is like very secure. But there is this synchrony assumption or at least it's a game theoretically secure and not like Zac the matically

secure, right? Yeah. And like, there is like Network dependency on like latency and stuff of that sort. So, yeah, exactly. It's like different kind of security properties. But alive client Bridge allows you to overcome a lot of these difficulties specially in. Is the tab and deterministic finality where you can be certain that after a few blocks, things will not change and which is true, for example, for ethereal 2.0, but not through for theorem one.

So, and ZK Bridges, make it possible for chains that have let's say, incompatible light clients and communicate with each other. So, When you want to verify the theorem 2.0 consensus. Then you have to verify a lot of be less signatures and you have to do it on a very specific elliptic curve, that that's pretty hard and it's pretty compute-intensive in the context of a blockchain.

So with the zika bridge, you just found it in the toll protocol inside the snark and then you just verify the proof, which is like like we mentioned before, a lot of L ones already support Primitives for proof. If ocation so you can do that but you cannot do the light client directly so zika Bridges. Give you that. So for example, if it's just a way of kind of getting the stage of the of the other chain, yeah, crust is Leon to the chain that you're coming from, right?

Yeah, exactly. So you now that you know you can verify the left hand you know know what is the latest state. So from there, you can start making queries and check balances and checks. Check transfer messages or things like that. So that connects them in a very nice way. Yeah. And like if you look I did an episode while back on like different kinds of bridges and different security for different

kinds of bridges. And these cryptographic Bridges, tend to do best on the security front and that's where like IBC is like that. But I funny because I thought, for a long time, people were just like you can't do that on a theory. Mm, you can can't. That was the way. Yeah, everyone's like you just, it was a paradigm shift, right? I mean, to you, just putting everything. In the ZK S. I mean, it's it's kind of it's a trick but it's a trick that

works. Yeah. And it wasn't practical like it two years ago, right? Like now things have become much faster and much more advanced and people have become better at doing this. And now it's practical. It wasn't practical to years ago. So it's called.

Yeah. And there are so there's the succinct Labs. There we actually did for like 4 Z, KV, we do these events sometimes focused on specific networks so we did one Nah, never mous and actually talked about ZK Bridges. So there was like, we were able to find a few other teams doing something similar. There is like a ZK, IBC. There is a team called seek a bridge. So yeah, that's maybe that's also over on the YouTube channel.

So if you do have a linked I can find it, you have New Foundation that also did this with mean, any Theory. Mm, yeah that is also has one now as UK bridge and there's a team coming out of Berkeley as well called I think specular. So Yeah, that's quite a few teams now. And in a way this this is something that we had no. So basically the first deployment of the succinct Bridge was between the gnosis test net and and and girly the

theorem test that. So in a way we've kind of we've been tracking this very closely, Yeah, and but the thing is, and this kind of leads me to my next topic, auditing. This is so difficult because basically, with a bridge, and I mean, with the number of Bridge facts, we've seen this year, let's hope that's. So, we've seen the last of them for this year, at least, but whatever.

And the number of funds that are typically in bridges and kind of security is obviously of the utmost concern and I mean, obviously it sucks with vulnerabilities and more or less anything. But basically if it's if it's if it's a game or something obviously it's not you know, the consequences and that large but yeah. How do you audit these EK s? How do you make sure that the ZK circuit because I mean, the byte code itself. It's not exactly human readable. So yeah, how do you go about

this? So first of all, can I just give a depressing thought about the security of, like, ZK moments and bridges in general? This is yes. But I will counteract your thought afterwards. But no, go for it. Go for it. Okay, let's try. So the depressing thought that a lot of the heck's that We've seen have happened on, let's say

the integration layers. So you have this complex Solutions, like the circuits and all that, and let's say the optimistic protocols and that part, but a lot of the hacks happen on the integration part, let's say on the smart contracts and so on where you find a bug that happens after you verify the complex part. And I think that's a lot.

That's the part that where hackers put a lot of effort in and kind of something that is concerning me, is that when they start looking at the more complex Parts, maybe maybe they'll find more holes. So we'll see. Oh, you're saying like maybe. Yeah. Okay. So, like the Hat, doctors have any didn't even need to go. That deep the hacks happened. Exactly. I mean, I'm totally with you.

I mean Busy the possibility, space for making for introducing vulnerabilities income tax systems is so large and even if you look at, if you look like at like the recent Finance bridge hack and so on, it was actually pretty sophisticated already. So basically the yeah. So how we actually thought about this? So obviously we thought about this for a long time because I mean, I mean we're German Engineers, right? So we like thinking about security Education's. Yeah, and audits.

So this is why audits? Yeah, but so far no major hacks. So, I mean, so far, you know, for a project that's been in this space for so long. No sir said very few, like vulnerabilities. And yeah, that's good. Yeah. I mean, then turn off been any day. I mean, when you prevent audits of ZK systems, we do. I mean, just so, you know what, ZK hack when we introduce these puzzles, they're often based on

historic. Here's so actually like if you look at the puzzle page on the zika hack site, it's basically meant to show you. Here's how like a bug can happen. Here's a vulnerability did happen, but I think so. I mean the Z cash bug for example could have been horrific the fact which they don't believe it has been. I did here, I said because it would have basically, you would have gotten more in the field,

it pours, right? So basically, you would always own after its own Their particular system, there was a way to kind of prove that it didn't happen because of when they did the upgrade and the number of tokens likes at some point like you had to move. Yeah.

Yeah not what everyone has but like just a total and so like had there been this exploit was just like mint Infinity tokens, you would have seen it but that's like a specific case where like like there's only like five people in the world who understood what was happening anyways and like they all worked there. Like that's I think. Why? That didn't get exploited. Yeah, yeah, but yeah, but that could be how we were thinking

about this. This kind of security is kind of the its kind of strength in numbers. Basically, it's like you need to add redundancy. So as you put like a sieve in a sieve and a see if and then basically you have something that doesn't is not very seve like anymore. And so basically our idea and basically how we are going to Because you don't want to test

anything in production, right? So, basically, how we are going to kind of move this to production without endangering client funds or user funds is by actually creating a mighty sick of bridges. So basically you have you have the old Omni Bridge which is basically multisig base bridge and you put it put it in the mighty sick with the new ZK like language and basically if Agree on a payout, payout happens. If they don't, agree, pale doesn't happen.

And then basically, you have to you have to in order to compromise that you have to find a vulnerability in the ZK, lifetime bridge, but at the same time you actually have to compromise a majority of the sinus for the mighty Sigrid. So basically that that would make it like at least you know, an order of magnitude more difficult to kind of break it. And we're also working with our Others seek a light line, Bridge

teams. So, basically that in the future, we will have two or three independent implementations of ZK like time Bridges. And basically, there will be an Andrew. So basically, if these a great payout happens, if these don't

agree, nothing happens. And basically in that way you can reduce your exposure significantly but no, Masti because not only you don't have to find just one vulnerability in one Bridge. You actually have to find vulnerabilities in three different implementations of ZK client Bridges. Obviously, that could happen.

If there's like, if you have like a ZK, like like one of those bugs where there's a, you know, bug in a paper for instance, like what happened with Z cash at the time, but it becomes a lot less likely that everything kind of has the same breaking point. So, No II. Think I think it's very responsible. I think it's a good approach like to add Security in depth. I'm a very big fan of security in depth in general. So, for example, you know, sometimes even people don't like

things like sgx, right? But they seem like sgx. Yeah, Fox, it's really difficult to trust but if you ask you, other dozen other. Yeah, exactly. Like if you had it as another component of security in depth, It is something that might add security. So here if you do like at the multisig bridge and you know, maybe maybe it's easy to bribe, all of them. You know, there are some rich people that can drive ball of designers but it adds some measure of security.

So it is nice and I think that's a very responsible way to approach it. So but yeah like if we're talking about like auditing the circuits themselves, I think it's still pretty hard task. I remember like I was doing some what it's like, when I when I was encouraged, we also like audited sapling like the zika shop. Great for it came out and it seems to me that still the most successful or the most, elaborate, all that's happened.

When people do manual reviews and they see specification in front of them and they vet the specification first. First and then they see that the code matches the specification and so on and I think the Z cash team has been spectacular in writing good specifications. And that was something that in my opinion makes them system. Like I'm have a high confidence in their system because of that and but Today, we still do a lot of money a lot. It's there are some companies

that try to improve on that. Like there has been work where the Kestrel people that now are part of failure. I think that they've done some other things occasionally. Yeah, exactly. And very dice is also doing developing a bunch of tooling around that but still not yet widely used. But one of the things that I think, contribute More practically to security.

And still don't happen as much as I would like is the creation of common components that you can reuse, and that get audited and then get deployed and have a bunch of steak in them, in some sense, because they're deployed in a high-stakes places. And that increases the confidence in the components themselves. And then if you use this as a major part in your Application can just quickly back like that. Exactly. And they think we've done some of this when we were developing semaphore.

So, we audited this component and some other people were using them. And I would like to see that more now in the new Realms of the cave, where we use long and other kinds of systems. It's harder there because you also have a lot of sex. Build. You can customize it a lot, but if we find the community plonk construction, that we can line on, maybe we can start developing these components that people could reuse. And that, that makes a big difference.

Yeah, I like that. Yeah, I think for that also having some code of some sort of, you know, benchmarking to a which tells you how much certain components have been used in what amount riding on them as been. I think that would be super. Super useful. That would be nice. Yeah. Yeah there was a last point, right? Yes. But it's the KML and I don't know anything really about that. What what is he KML? Oh, so that's an interesting thought. I think it's because it has become.

From 0 to 100 popular in some sense. It like the last month, maybe maybe a month or two. So yeah. But it's a topic that become very popular. So Z KML in general is proving that you evaluated model that you got the results from validating machine learning model or a neural network and proving that you did it correctly with the right model with With signed inputs or so on. And in that way, you can run this in different environments.

Not necessarily the environment that consumes the result but enjoy like be confident that you've got the correct result. So, one example would be for like face liveness detection, where you would see someone has Like you can do this for kyc or things of that sort and but you have other use cases.

You can think about, let's say, G PT 3 today or chat GPT where you want to know that you're getting the results from the right model that was at least claim to have been trained on some specific on some set of inputs and you will then be sure that it you get the result from that model. And not something that someone else invented that didn't include all the history of some region in the world. Let's say so we recently had Jensen on are you familiar with

them Jensen? Jensen, GE n Sy n. It was episode 471 basically it's about deep learning compute and kind of distributed basically making that Muted. And basically there you also have this checkpointing problem. They basically, you have two people have to prove that they actually did, run your the data through some sort of model and basically, how involved at was. And yeah, we also talked a bit about how difficult that actually is to prove because it's not deterministic, so it's yeah.

One other angle on this. So like I have not done a deep dive so I only like, really all I've understood though is there's like two ways of thinking about it. One is the way that Kobe just described if like attesting to the model but I have heard it all so discreet.

Like I've just I've heard the idea of doing kind of like the model making building the model on encrypted data or like and so it's not so much ZK. I think people kind of don't think that's homomorphic encryption exactly it's probably going to be like fhe or 80 somehow but yeah just like the topic of ZK. Also, it's often like super mixed up with all the other Advanced cryptography like MPC and FHA which is great. I think they shot.

Yeah. Yeah I mean sometimes you're actually mixing them and sometimes just like in people's minds they're like very complicated cryptography over there difficult. That's there does seem to be some really cool overlap between the ML and I worlds and ZK now, which is cool. I'm excited for the new year to like meet some of these people, building this stuff. Yeah, some really good people working on this on the KML so I'm excited to see where it goes.

Quit. So it seems like while like for the last three years or so. Most of the progress has kind of hinged on the succinctness property of CK proofs. It seems like it now, Ventures more into like the Privacy preserving Ram that obviously can also offer, would you agree? Oh, and I see Anna kind of weak. Like the Hat. There's been though. Those two, I think the blockchain the wanting to scale. The blockchain Accelerated. This is synchronous for sure. And like the idea of using it as

validity instead of privacy. I think those ideas were really awesome and they were like super easily kind of understood and then used, but I do think like, as what I've what has happened is like DK connecting to blockchain accelerated, ZK development, so much that now the Libraries are quite good and they're getting better. They start to be able to be used even outside of blockchain and often. In those cases, it is privacy. That's the main part so.

Yeah, I think of examples. Well I did I gave this one example that I don't know that much about like the video thing Google. Well the video one but like Google and gdpr. I mean there was years ago cloudflare used it in a non blockchain context. I mean we've talked to people who did like password protection, Barely touching the blockchain, but I think what I've understood is all the major like tech companies. Web two companies have teams building ZK stuff outside of the

blockchain context. I think Apple probably is doing something but obviously, like, I don't know because they don't tell you stuff but true private very private. Yeah, I don't know, I think I think we're going to see a lot of non blockchains EKU. Cases that use privacy in the,

in the near future. I think like, in some sense that these non blockchain use cases, we see a lot of, let's say, very specific instructions for very optimized protocol for concrete, use case, like you said in cloudflare and and what others do. And maybe sometimes people don't bundle them with ZK because we're used to snarks, which are General purpose but definitely a lot of advanced than super interesting cryptography happen all around and but yeah.

But actually about privacy. I think if we if we look at it we actually see would see that the first deployments of ZK in blockchain was about privacy. Right. Like scalability came later in the let is truth. Yeah. Oh I just remember to use We forgot to mention by the way, and one that's hyper relevant. Today, it is on chain mostly because proof of reserves and zk0 yeses and it's actually, I would call it a. It's a, it's both it's attestation.

But often the reason you're using ZK is also for privacy. So like so that you're not like just overtly showing everybody's bank account crypto accounts. You actually can retain some privacy. Yeah, that's kind of a good hybrid example. It is a good use case. No. So what are you guys? He's excited about for 2023. I well I'm going to be KML is the place I want to explore. It's already been declared on the last show. We did of the year. The Troon is like I predict there will be more Z km L

guests. So I think we're going to we're going to start bringing on some more folks like that. That's true. I think that's one very interesting topic. I'm like you want to go more like yeah, go for it. So I'm turning the excited to see the development or the let's see which like the tooling around ZK and just Advanced cryptography mature, like one analogy that they had. In my mind is that, you know, when you start out with electronics, you just connect

like an LED with. Battery and then you have like you turn on, it's very nice. That's kind of where we were with the tooling like a year ago and ZK. So now we're at the part of like maybe something that is more akin to an Arduino, which is still quite crude and then you put it on on this board where you put the wires, but it's

still quite messy. So you have this component that you can connect, but I think we're getting to the stage where It's become something that feels very real and you can design extremely complex things that interact with each other. And you have efficient components that you can connect like transistors. Like, this is kind of an analogy that I have in my mind. So I'm excited to see this kind of tolling, develop and people. Mix mixing and matching these

kind of things. But generally also, So, seeing other kinds of cryptography, intermixing with those. So we've seen some of that also, from them bonus Group, by the way, like this collaborative, snarks approach, where you combine MPC with snarks, like use proven ZK, the correct execution of a multi-party computation. So I would love to see more of that happening and I think it can unlock bunch of interesting use cases. Yeah, I think it's the use cases like this past year.

Like, I mean, a lot of what we mentioned today are actually newer to us to, like they've come up in the last year, not all of them, but a number of those, I remember years ago, having a really, like, kind of having just such a few number of use cases, like trying to pick like, oh, yeah, you can do payments kind of you can scale but yeah, this time around it's like there's a real, There's real list and I think it's going to keep growing. Yeah, I think that I think.

Yeah, exactly. And I think more more let's say Engineers that do not specialize in your Toga fee would be able to access these Technologies, which is not quite true today. So I hope that will happen and that will spark more ideas and more use cases 2023. What about fears for 20:23? What is something that we absolutely must get, right?

Cool. Funny my fear for 2021 had come true actually which was like a large-scale ZK project gets tied to International crime and it did I think I mean we didn't talk much about tornado but I think it was a reckoning for the ZK space and it's pushed teams towards compliance and some away. I think fears are that. That people use EK for nefarious purposes that are worse than Than tornado. I don't know. That's what I would not want. Yeah, I actually would, let's

say that what we must get right? Is how to how to get people to use privacy in a way that doesn't hurt them because I think a lot of people today use privacy and like like the used tools in general and maybe they don't think about the implications. So yeah by technological ways in It's kind of this could be addressed, right? So for instance, for tornado. There was the idea that you can

have curated lists of addresses. You don't want to be mixed with and then you can prove that you weren't mixed with these offices and so on. Then we can just be like an adblocker where basically you subscribe to some service that kind of tells you who who not to play with. And so I think there's actually technological solutions for lots of things. But what what? I'm worried about sorry I'm hijacking my own question.

What I'm worried about is that privacy as a concept somehow gets discredited that it kind of goes down the drain because people tired to nefarious purposes or basically where it's been used in the various ways where I would kind of pause it. And it's a value, right? Basically, it's kind of like something that that kind of you have you subscribe to our you don't. But I do believe that privacy should be a human, right? And I think kind of the erosions of that. How do you feel about that?

Well, I just I was about to say I think actually tornado in a way and like a lot of things this year, if anything, right? This at this moment I actually think there's a renewed interest in having privacy. I actually think the last few years there's been more of like a less a fair. Oh well I actually I think I feel more of like a realization that it's not just like a fun nice to have but more of a pillar, if you really want the world, you want, And I think, I

don't know. I felt that at least the tone of discourse has actually shifted in that way. So I'm hopeful, I'm hopeful that in the new year. It actually continues to be relevant, if not more relevant. But we may go through another phase, where we don't care. That would, that's totally possible.

I mean, I think that is also, like levels of privacy that have not been properly explored yet like I want privacy from Um, let's say, I don't want this random person to see what I'm doing, for example, in my bank account today, but I'm okay with, I don't know the bank seeing this or some other entities saying it. So this is the level of privacy that like like it's not all or nothing like that doesn't

control. Yeah. Permissions. Or who you reveal it to or Jack you want privacy from the public? Definitely. I think this is definitely That I would like to say but there are levels to this. I also I do think that the builders, you know, they've made decisions but I think another decision that's been made is to use exactly what you described Federica. These like new architectures or like techniques to actually avoid the bad behavior but still have these systems for good

actors. I think they're think. I think a lot of teams are thinking more about that there. Had been this attitude of, like, oh, well, we decentralized and we're not in trouble, or we add a viewing key, and then we're not in trouble, but actually, like the effectiveness of these are questionable. I think like there are some new techniques that haven't been explored haven't been used and

maybe they'll be more. And I think people thinking about those techniques is really important because I think we want, like you said Kobe. I think we want a place where we can act pretty I've ately, but we also don't want just Bad actors to come in and read like use those those tools in ways that just like hurt Society. Yeah. I think this, these are really good last words, Anna. Yeah, you happy with these as last words, for the year, your last night. Well, my last words for the

year. Let's say good, thank you both for coming on. Yeah, I'll add a lot. I am so confused. So my I think I think I would love some benchmarking, you know, just like some tables that tell you, this is good at that. This is performance for this, this solution for this, kind of set of problems to me. That would be shining a light where it needs to be shown. So it's a Yeah, but I think the things have to come live.

They have to happen before and then we have to see and then like I think I hope it was like, it might be a best best team wins or there might be this really interesting multi L2 scenario with with awesome. ZK Bridges to L ones and they're all like they have their Niche and their use cases that like fit for exactly their architecture. Yeah, it's going to be exciting to see how it comes, how it goes. Thank you both for coming on.

Thank you for giving us so much of your time and I wish you a super happy holiday season and get into the new year very safely. Yeah, you too, always a fun. Thanks fredericka. Thank you. Thank you for joining us on this week's episode. We release new episodes every week. You can find And subscribe to the show on iTunes Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud or wherever. The podcast.

And if you have a Google home or Alexa device, you can tell it to listen to the latest episode of the epicenter podcast, go to epicenter, .t V /, subscribe for a full list of places where you can watch and listen, while you're there, be sure to sign up for the newsletter so you get new episodes in your inbox as

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