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: Episode 302: ZK for web2 interop with zkLogin & ZK Email Ep...
Mar 20, 2024•1 hr 2 min
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 p...
Mar 13, 2024•1 hr 13 min
In this week’s episode, Anna and Tarun catch up with Uma Roy , CEO and cofounder of Succinct . They dive into Succinct’s developments over the last year ranging from the work they did on the ZK bridge infrastructure to the Succinct platform, the Succinct prover network and their most recent release of SP1. They discuss connections between these products, how their development evolved, the competitive landscape, the future for the project and much more. Here’s some additional links for this episo...
Mar 06, 2024•1 hr 7 min
In this week’s episode, Anna chats with Omer Shlomovits and Yuval Domb from Ingonyama . They go back to the start of the project, exploring Ingonyama’s initial vision for what ZK Hardware could be, how the field has evolved and how they are accelerating ZK Hardware today. The group discuss hardware product cycles, the hardware and algorithmic components, how a ZK ASIC is developed, they review some of the latest research from Ingonyama and more. Here’s some additional links for this episode: Epi...
Feb 28, 2024•1 hr 15 min
In this week’s episode, Anna and Tarun interview Brian Weickmann & Richard Liang from the ZKP2P project. They cover the opportunities and challenges of building ZK applications with the current tools available, as well as revisit the topic of ZK Email and explore how this lies at the heart of the current version of ZKP2P. They also discuss the goals of ZKP2P, what’s happening under the hood, the types of experiments and initiatives the project is running, how a user can already use the exist...
Feb 21, 2024•1 hr 4 min
In this week’s episode, Anna and Guillermo chat with Yaz Khoury and Ismail Khoffi from Celestia . They share how the team prepared for the launch of the Celestia mainnet and what has been happening at Celestia since. They revisit the topic of DA (Data Availability) and explore how rollups and dApp developers can already use the Celestia DA layer. The group discusses Blobstream, which brings the benefits of Celestia to Ethereum and helps to scale the network, as well as community building, the mo...
Feb 14, 2024•1 hr 19 min
In this week’s episode, Anna and Tarun chat with Noam Nisan , Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem , Principle Researcher at StarkWare Industries and one of the pioneers in the field of Algorithmic Game Theory. They cover his extensive research and academic background, starting with his work on complexity theory as well as Algorithmic Game Theory and his current work on blockchains and Tokenomics at StarkWare. They discuss his recent blog post; Simple Tokenomics for a Proof-of-Stake U...
Feb 07, 2024•1 hr 7 min
** This episode uses visual aids and slides throughout, you may want to check out the video version here ** In this week’s episode, Anna and Nico Mohnblatt from Geometry Research host a ZK Jargon Decoder episode. Based on Nico’s ZK Jargon Decoder Website , they discuss some of the confusing terms and concepts commonly used by the ZK community. The session aims to be digestible for those still in the early stages of their ZK learning journey, but it does take a dive into the depths of detail ever...
Jan 31, 2024•1 hr 14 min
In this week’s episode, Anna catches up with Prabal Banerjee , co-founder of Avail . They deep dive into Prabal’s career, starting with his work in academia, his move to Polygon and to his spinning out the Avail project. They discuss how the project was built, tech decisions and the motivations behind them as well as their use of KZG, validity proofs and their position within the Ethereum and wider blockchain ecosystem. They go on to revisit Data Availability and the interaction with different p...
Jan 24, 2024•1 hr 17 min
This week, Anna caught up on all things Aleo with Howard Wu co-founder of the Aleo Network & Alex Pruden executive director of the Aleo Foundation . Howard was last on the show back in 2020 when Aleo was in its infancy, so the group dive into how the project has evolved over the last few years, covering lessons learned along the way as well as technical decisions, detours, breakthroughs and reflecting on initial goals as they built out the system. Here’s some additional links for this episod...
Jan 17, 2024•1 hr 25 min
In this week’s episode, Anna and cohosts Guillermo , Kobi , Nico and Tarun share their predictions, hopes (and worries) for ZK in 2024. They cover emerging ideas in ZK, research predictions, dream applications, the best case for ZK in 2024, the worst case for ZK, possible ‘Black Swans’ and more. ZK Hack IV online is coming soon, sign up for the kick-off session on 16th Jan here . For the latest news on the event check out the zhhack.dev/zkhackIV website. Aleo is a new Layer-1 blockchain that ach...
Jan 10, 2024•1 hr 8 min
In this week’s episode, Anna catches up in person with Guillermo , Tarun and Alex Evans for a look back at 2023. They revisit their state of mind back in Jan 2023 and share how the year unfolded and evolved for each of them as well as the ZK space as a whole. They survey the themes, applications and research topics that dominated ZK throughout this year and offer retrospective takes on how the ecosystem has changed. Hope you enjoy! We are taking the next week off, but will return with our look f...
Dec 27, 2023•1 hr 14 min
In this week’s episode, host Anna Rose and cohost Nico Mohnblatt catch up with Ulrich Haböck , an applied cryptographer at Polygon Labs . This episode revolves around Ulrich’s journey into applied zero-knowledge cryptography, transitioning from an academic environment to being a full-time practitioner. They discuss his contributions to the field, including his many write-ups and manuscripts as well as his breakthrough research on Multivariate lookups with his work logUp. They also cover his work...
Dec 20, 2023•1 hr 4 min
In this week's episode, Anna and cohost Brendan Farmer catch up with Jim Posen and Radi Cojbasic from Ulvetanna . They cover the origin story of Ulvetanna and their work on the ZK hardware/software intersection before moving on to discuss Binius, a new proving system they developed which is optimised for hardware. Binius is built on towers of binary fields and draws on recent breakthroughs on SNARKs. This work continues the trend towards the use of smaller fields and was inspired by the developm...
Dec 13, 2023•1 hr 9 min
This week Anna and cohost Kobi chat with both Kostas Kryptos from Mysten Labs , discussing the zkLogin project and Aayush Gupta representing the ZK Email + Email Wallet projects. They explore the use case of web2 onboarding into web3, through the lens of these two different projects which emerged independently but share a lot of the same characteristics. They discuss the way this use case problem was first identified, the solution that each project came up with independently, the decisions that ...
Dec 06, 2023•1 hr 21 min
This week, Anna catches up with Tarun Chitra and Sreeram Kannan during a spontaneous session recorded at Devconnect 2023 in Istanbul! They cover a variety of topics seen at the event, including zk toolkits, intents and Data Availability, shedding light on how these ideas are reshaping the framework of digital interaction and governance. Their chat covers the challenges and opportunities these technologies present, highlighting their significance in the current ecosystem. Later, they explore the ...
Nov 29, 2023•1 hr 7 min
In this week’s episode, Anna takes a look back at the last 6 years of the Zero Knowledge Podcast, how it came to be and the journey the show has been on since that very first episode in 2017. Anna reviews the highs and lows of the show, touching on episodes which made a profound impact on her own journey in the ZK space, as well as episodes she wouldn’t rush to listen to again! Discover key show learnings, how the zkSummit formed and take a trip down memory lane in the 300th episode of Zero Know...
Nov 22, 2023•36 min
In this week's episode, Anna chats with Alex Gluchowski , CEO of Matter Labs & co-creator of the zkSync network. They catch up on the zkSync project since it launched in Feb 2023. They dive into recent initiatives like the ZK Stack framework, Hyperchains, and the ZK Credo mission statement. They also explore the upcoming Boojum proof system upgrade planned for zkSync Era and discuss the future of the zkSync project as a whole. Here’s some additional links for this episode: Introducing the ZK...
Nov 15, 2023•1 hr 2 min
In this week's episode Anna Rose chats with Brandon Kase , CTO, and Steve Pack , Head of Product at O(1)Labs , focusing on the Mina Protocol . The discussion covers their journeys leading to their work on the project, developments in the Mina Protocol since the last appearance on ZK Podcast, and insights into the zkApps building environment. They delve into the technical aspects of o1js and the underlying philosophy that drives its design. The episode wraps with a forward-looking perspective on ...
Nov 08, 2023•52 min
In this week’s episode, Anna and Nico interview Or Sattath , Assistant Professor at the Ben-Gurion University in the Computer Science department. This is the 2nd episode with Or on this show, continuing the conversation around Quantum Cryptography. This time, he describes how we can transition from a pre-quantum to a post-quantum environment, looking at existing systems like Bitcoin and Ethereum. He covers why the methods used in the transition will be important, techniques on how this could be ...
Nov 01, 2023•1 hr 7 min
In this week’s episode, Anna and Nico catch up with Brian Retford and Jeremy Bruestle from RISC Zero . They delve into the current status of the project, breaking down the components of the stack, from the RISC Zero zkVM leveraging the RISC-V instruction set architecture to the Bonsai proving service and their new zkEVM, Zeth. They also touch on their design methodology, how the system components integrate and future developments for RISC Zero. Here’s some additional resources for this episode: ...
Oct 25, 2023•1 hr 2 min
In this week’s episode, Anna Rose is joined by Nigel Smart , Professor at KU Leuven and Chief Academic Officer at Zama to discuss the advancements in MPC over recent years. Nigel unpacks core components of MPC systems, including garbled circuits, secret sharing, and FHE. They discuss both systems-level applications like DKGs and Threshold Signature Schemes and actual real-world deployments. Throughout the episode, they also discuss how MPC and ZK differ, but how they can be used together to enha...
Oct 18, 2023•1 hr 18 min
In this week’s episode, host Anna Rose and co-host Kobi Gurkan chat with Alex Evans and Guillermo Angeris about their new research paper on Succinct Proofs in Linear Algebra . The paper introduces a framework that simplifies the construction of succinct proofs and offers a toolkit of useful techniques. Their conversation also covers the use of randomized reductions in zero-knowledge proofs, the security of the FRI protocol, and the potential applications of the framework in other systems. Here’s...
Oct 11, 2023•1 hr 7 min
On this week’s episode, Anna Rose interviews Michał Zając and Albert Garreta from the Nethermind team. They discuss the origin story of Nethermind and its role in the ecosystem today. They also delve into the cryptography research being done at Nethermind, including their work on proving the security of FRI-based protocols, identifying security issues with Fiat-Shamir, exploring topics like ZK malleability and aggregation, and building SNARKs over rings. Here’s some additional links for this epi...
Oct 04, 2023•55 min
In this special live episode, recorded at zkSummit10, host Anna Rose chats with regular co-hosts Tarun Chitra , Guillermo Angeris and Nico Mohnblatt about the state of ZK today. They cover how the term ‘ZK’ has evolved, market trends that are relevant to the ZK community today and ZK ‘crossovers’ like ZKML or ZKFHE and their current status in the industry. They also discuss how the ZK space could grow in the future and share their predictions. Much of the conversation is fuelled by some great qu...
Sep 27, 2023•1 hr 12 min
On this week’s episode, Anna Rose and Tarun Chitra chat with Mallesh Pai , Associate Professor of Economics at Rice University . They explore mechanism design in an economic context and Mallesh’s work around MEV topics - specifically on censorship in an MEV context and within his Special Mechanism Group . The discussion takes the team back into the topic of MEV, revisiting the proposer builder separation concept and the impact that this may have on the efficiency and censorship resistance of the...
Sep 06, 2023•1 hr 4 min
This week, Anna and Guillermo chat with David Wong , author of the Real-World Cryptography book , and a cofounder zksecurity.xyz - an auditing firm focused on Zero Knowledge technology. They chat about what first got him interested in cryptography, his early work as a security consultant, his work on the Facebook crypto project and the Mina project, zksecurity.xyz, auditing techniques and their efficacy in a ZK context, what common bugs are found in ZK code, and much more. Here’s some additional...
Aug 30, 2023•1 hr 8 min
This week, host Anna Rose chats with Finch , Erwan and Jen from the Penumbra team. They share an update about Penumbra and discuss how this zk-powered project works under the hood. Specifically, how Penumbra harnesses ZK to offer new paradigms for staking, voting and trading. Here’s some additional links for this episode: Episode 247: Exploring Penumbra with Henry de Valence Penumbra Storage Penumbra GitHub ZK8: How to build a private DEX - Henry de Valence - Penumbra ZK8: Tiered Merkle Topiary ...
Aug 23, 2023•1 hr 6 min
In this week’s episode, Anna Rose and Kobi Gurkan chat with Or Sattath , Assistant Professor at the Ben-Gurion University in the Computer Science department. They deep dive into Or’s work on Quantum Cryptography. They begin with definitions of Quantum Computing and Quantum Cryptography, covering what these will mean for existing cryptography. They also explore how new discoveries in this field can interact with existing Proof-of-work systems and how Quantum computers could affect the game theory...
Aug 16, 2023•1 hr 3 min
This week, Anna Rose chats with Stefan George from Gnosis . They start with an update on the projects that have spun out of Gnosis - Safe, Zodiac, CoW Swap - as well as older experiments that the team had incubated. They then cover the evolution of Gnosis Chain from its origin as xDai, discuss the new aggregate bridge architecture Hashi and explore Gnosis Pay - an on-chain p2p payments product that fulfills some of the original motivations of Bitcoin. They discuss a range of relevant topics such...
Aug 02, 2023•1 hr 12 min
