ZK Podcast
317 episodes - English - Latest episode: 6 days ago - ★★★★★ - 89 ratingsThis community is built around the Zero Knowledge Podcast, a weekly show which goes deep into zk and blockchain topics and features interviews with top technical minds building decentralised tech and blockchain networks.
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Episodes
Episode 329: Building Cryptographic Proofs from Hash Functions with Alessandro Chiesa and Eylon Yogev
June 26, 2024 13:00In this week’s episode Anna and Nico chat with Alessandro Chiesa, Associate Professor at EPFL and Eylon Yogev, Professor at Bar-Ilan University. They discuss their recent publication; Building Cryptographic Proofs from Hash Functions, which provides a comprehensive and rigorous treatment of cryptographic proofs and goes on to analyze notable constructions of SNARGs based on ideal hash functions. The post Episode 329: Building Cryptographic Proofs from Hash Functions with Alessandro Chiesa a...
Episode 328: ZK on Bitcoin with Alpen Labs
June 19, 2024 13:00In this week’s episode, Anna and Tarun chat with Sims Gautam and Liam Eagen from Alpen Labs. They dive into the world of Bitcoin L2s and focus on how ZK can be used to incorporate strong connections between Bitcoin and new execution environments. The group then explores BitVM, covenants, the distinction between the Bridge Operators and sequencers in this model and how this differs from how these actors work in Eth L2s. They then dive into SNARKnado, including what is happening under the hood...
Episode 327: Proof Aggregation with Shumo and Yi from NEBRA
June 12, 2024 13:00In this week’s episode Anna chats with Shumo and Yi from NEBRA. They discuss NEBRA UPA, their Universal Proof Aggregation product. They cover what it takes to incorporate proving systems into NEBRA UPA as well as the benefits that these systems will bring, how developers are meant to interact with them, and future integrations to enable seamless cross-zkRollup applications. They cover prover marketplaces, verification aggregation systems, and the design space that these systems open up. Th...
Bonus: ZK Hack Montreal!
June 05, 2024 14:00There is no episode this week, but wanted to let you know about the upcoming ZK Hack Montreal event, happening Aug 9-11. Apply now to attend as a hacker and jump into zk https://www.zkmontreal.com/ The post Bonus: ZK Hack Montreal! appeared first on ZK Podcast.
Episode 326: MPC & ZK in Ligero and Ligetron
May 29, 2024 13:00In this week’s episode Anna and Kobi chat with Muthu Venkitasubramaniam and Carmit Hazay from Ligero. They discuss their work on MPC and ZK for the last 20 years and how the research has evolved. They then dive into a nuanced conversation on how MPC & ZK are interrelated. The discuss Ligero, what led to the project and the early phases, as well as the new Ligetron system and how they plan on getting this technology into the wild. The post Episode 326: MPC & ZK in Ligero and Ligetron appeare...
Episode 325: Web Proofs with Tracy from Pluto
May 22, 2024 13:00In this week’s episode Anna chats with Tracy Livengood, co-founder of Pluto; an applied cryptography org building developer tools which add verifiable data from web data to an on-chain application, using ZK. They discuss Tracy’s move from being an engineer in Web2, what prompted his move into the decentralized web and how he eventually found his way into the ZK space. He shares the concept of ‘Web Proofs’, and how Pluto can use some of the TLSNotary stack to bring private web data into on-...
Episode 324: Discovering New Elliptic Curves with Antonio Sanso and Youssef El Housni
May 15, 2024 13:00This week, Anna and Nico catch up with Antonio Sanso, Researcher at the Ethereum Foundation and Youssef El Housni, Engineer at ConsenSys and builder of Linea. They discuss Antonio and Youssef’s new work, Families of prime-order endomorphism-equipped embedded curves on pairing-friendly curves, and dive into Elliptic Curve cryptography, Bandersnatch and Verkle Tries amongst much more, before dissecting what terms in the title of this paper truly mean. After getting into the weeds of cryptogr...
Episode 323: The Role of Reth with Georgios
May 08, 2024 13:00This week, Anna and Tarun catch up with Georgios Konstantopoulos, CTO of Paradigm and long-standing friend of the ZK Pod! First they cover the work Georgios has been doing since he last appeared on the show, covering everything from updates on Foundry to the more recent work on Reth. They then dig into what makes it different, what inspires its design, where it is heading and the eventual end goals of the project. They also chat about the general client node landscape, from the ETH 2.0 res...
Episode 322: Definitions, Security and Sumcheck in ZK Systems with Justin Thaler
May 01, 2024 13:00In this week’s episode, Anna and Guillermo catch up with Justin Thaler, Associate Professor at Georgetown and Research Partner at a16z. The group dive into a handful of points from Justin’s ‘17 Misconceptions about SNARKs’ article, discussing if his views have changed since it was published back in 2023 and whether some points have become common knowledge since the article first rippled through the ZK community. They then dive into his new zkVM Jolt, which was initially described along wit...
Episode 321: STIR with Gal Arnon & Giacomo Fenzi
April 24, 2024 13:00In this week’s episode, Anna and Kobi chat with Gal Arnon, Ph.D student from the Weizmann Institute of Science & Giacomo Fenzi, Ph.D. student in the COMPSEC Lab at EPFL. Gal and Giacomo are amongst the co-authors of ‘STIR: Reed–Solomon Proximity Testing with Fewer Queries’ and in this conversation, they discuss how their research led them to work on these topics and where the thesis for this particular work sparked from. They set the stage by exploring the history of FRI and discussing som...
Episode 320: A Deep Dive into Shared Sequencers with Espresso’s Ben Fisch
April 17, 2024 13:00In this week’s episode, Anna and Brendan Farmer catch up with Ben Fisch, CEO of Espresso Systems. They explore the inner workings of the current L2 sequencing landscape and then discuss how a shared sequencing marketplace like Espresso works. They touch on how MEV plays a part in the new system, how the role of the sequencer can be separated into subroles, how all these parts will work together in such a system and much more. The post Episode 320: A Deep Dive into Shared Sequencers with Esp...
Episode 319: The Past & Present of the L2 Landscape with Jordi Baylina
April 10, 2024 13:00In this week’s episode, Anna catches up with Jordi Baylina, OG Ethereum contributor and Polygon zkEVM Technical Lead. They cover what Jordi has been working on since he was last on the show in 2021. Back then, zkEVMs were still just an idea. Now that many of these systems have launched, they have a chance to look at how these fit into the general L2 landscape. They cover Jordi’s view on engineering decentralized systems and how these are rolled out, and the recent research from Polygon, in...
Announcement: ZK Hack Krakow – May 17-19 2024
April 09, 2024 07:00A quick announcement for ZK Hack Krakow, happening from May 17-19 2024. Apply to join us https://www.zkkrakow.com/ The post Announcement: ZK Hack Krakow – May 17-19 2024 appeared first on ZK Podcast.
Episode 318: Threshold Signature Schemes & FROST with Chelsea Komlo
April 03, 2024 13:00In this week’s episode, Anna and Nico chat with Chelsea Komlo, Chief Scientist for the Zcash Foundation and member of the Cryptography, Security, and Privacy lab at the University of Waterloo. They discuss what sparked Chelsea’s interest in cryptography research, starting with her work contributing to Tor, to her move to Zcash and her PhD work on Threshold Signature Schemes. They define some important terms around different signature schemes and discuss possible optimizations that can be us...
Episode 317: Enhancing On-Chain Intelligence with Ritual
March 27, 2024 14:00This week, Anna and Tarun chat with Niraj Pant and Anish Agnihotri from Ritual. They kick off by revisiting the AIxCrypto intersection before diving into the Ritual product and its goals around developing open access AI infrastructure. They explore the opportunities that open up when you bring ML to smart contracts. The post Episode 317: Enhancing On-Chain Intelligence with Ritual appeared first on ZK Podcast.
Bonus: zkSummit11 reminder!
March 25, 2024 12:30Quick reminder about our upcoming zkSummit 11 event. Happening in Athens on April 10th, we once again bring together the top researchers and engineers working in zk to share their latest research and new findings. The post Bonus: zkSummit11 reminder! appeared first on ZK Podcast.
Episode 316: Alin Tomescu on Distributed On-chain Randomness and Keyless Accounts
March 20, 2024 14:00In 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. The post Episode 316: Alin Tomescu on Distributed On-chain Randomness and Keyless Accounts appeared first o...
Episode 315: ZK Hack Ecosystem & Winners of ZK Hack IV
March 13, 2024 14:00This 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 t...
Episode 314: Succinct’s Platform, Prover Network and SP1
March 06, 2024 14:00In 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. The post Episode 314: Succinct’s Platfor...
Episode 313: Revisiting Hardware with Ingonyama
February 28, 2024 14:00In 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. The post Episode 313: Revisiting Hardware with...
Episode 312: ZKP2P with Brian & Richard
February 21, 2024 14:00In 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...
Episode 311: The Launch of Celestia and Beyond
February 14, 2024 14:00In 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...
Episode 310: Algorithmic Game Theory & PoS Tokenomics with Noam Nisan
February 07, 2024 14:00In 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-Sta...
Bonus: ZK Job Fair tomorrow!
February 05, 2024 16:00Quick note about our upcoming ZK Job Fair - happening tomorrow Feb 6th at 7pm UTC, right after the finale of the online ZK Hack IV event. This is a great chance to meet with hiring teams, and if you are looking to jump into ZK professionally, you won’t wanna miss it! The post Bonus: ZK Job Fair tomorrow! appeared first on ZK Podcast.
The Zero Knowledge Summit 11
February 02, 2024 11:44ZK11 is happening on April 10th 2024 in Athens. Join us once again to meet with top thinkers and builders […] The post The Zero Knowledge Summit 11 appeared first on ZK Podcast.
Episode 309: ZK Jargon Decoder with Nico Mohnblatt
January 31, 2024 14:00In 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 every now and again! The post Episode 309: ZK Jargon Decoder with Nico Mohnblatt appeared first on ZK Podcas...
Episode 308: Avail’s Approach to DA with Prabal Banerjee
January 24, 2024 14:00In 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...
Episode 307: The Evolution of Aleo with Howard Wu & Alex Pruden
January 17, 2024 14:00This 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 4 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. The post Episode 307: The Evolution of Aleo wi...
Episode 306: Predictions: ZK in 2024
January 10, 2024 14:00In 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. The post Episode 306: Predictions: ZK in 2024 appeared first on ZK Podcast.
Episode 298: Mina’s zkApps and o1js with Brandon and Steve
November 08, 2023 14:00In 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 ...
Bonus: ZK Hack Istanbul
November 03, 2023 11:00Just a quick message to say that if you are an experienced hacker ready to jump in and build some cool zk-based applications, be sure to join our IRL hackathon on Nov 10-12. All details about ZK Hack Istanbul can be found at zkistanbul.com The post Bonus: ZK Hack Istanbul appeared first on ZK Podcast.
Episode 297: Quantum Cryptography Part 2 with Or Sattath
November 01, 2023 14:00In 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 ...
Episode 296: Zeth, Bonsai and RISC Zero with Brian and Jeremy
October 25, 2023 13:00In this week’s episode, host Anna Rose and co host Nico Mohnblatt catch up with Brian Retford and Jeremy Bruestle from RISC Zero. Together they delve into the current status of the project, breaking down the components of the stack, from the innovative RISC Zero zkVM leveraging the RISC-V instruction set architecture to the Bonsai proving service and the intriguing Type Zero zkEVM, Zeth. They also touch on their design methodology, how the system components integrate and future developments ...
Episode 295: Return to MPC with Nigel Smart
October 18, 2023 13:00In 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 e...
Episode 294: Succinct Proofs and Linear Algebra with Guillermo and Alex
October 11, 2023 13:00In 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. Th...
Episode 293: Exploring Security of ZK Systems with Nethermind’s Michał & Albert
October 04, 2023 13:00On 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. The post Episode 293: Exploring Secu...
Episode 292: State of ZK – Live at zkSummit10!
September 27, 2023 13:00In 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 grea...
Bonus: zkSummit10 is a wrap + ZK Hack Istanbul
September 22, 2023 14:30A quick note about our recent zkSummit, the zk job fair and the official announcement of ZK Hack Istanbul. The post Bonus: zkSummit10 is a wrap + ZK Hack Istanbul appeared first on ZK Podcast.
The Zero Knowledge Summit 10
September 14, 2023 18:59ZK10 took place on Wednesday, Sept 20 in London. The event was brought to you by Zero Knowledge Podcast, hosted […] The post The Zero Knowledge Summit 10 appeared first on ZK Podcast.
Episode 259: 2022 End of Year Wrap with Co-Hosts
December 21, 2022 14:00In this week’s episode, Anna and part-time Zero Knowledge co-hosts Tarun, Guillermo, Josh and Kobi, get together for a casual catch up and have a look back at 2022. They trace Jan to today in both the zk community and the larger ecosystem, discussing the highs and the lows, focusing on the major events which stood out to them. If you think the team missed anything, let us know by replying to our tweet announcing this episode of the Podcast. This is the final episode of 2022 and Anna and t...
Episode 258: Ultrasound Money & VRFs with Justin Drake
December 14, 2022 14:00In this episode, Anna explores the topic of Ultrasound Money with Justin Drake from the Ethereum Foundation. They kick off with updates on his work in VDFs, MEV and censorship resistance, alongside his particular interests in ZK and how the progress VRFs have made can be applied in Ethereum’s POS architecture. They then dive into the original concept of Ultrasound Money and where Justin sees it progressing to in the future, including the current status around issuance. The post Episode 258:...
Episode 257: Proof of Solvency with Kostas Chalkias
December 07, 2022 14:00This week, Anna explores the topic of proof of solvency with Kostas Chalkias, co-founder and chief of Cryptography at MystenLabs. They cover Kostas’ background in Cryptography and explore his work on proof of reserves, otherwise known as proof of solvency. They cover Kostas’ background in Cryptography and explore his work on Proof of Reserves, otherwise known as Proof of Solvency. They review past Proof of Solvency models using ZKPs and look at the protocols that major centralized exchanges ...
Episode 256: New ZK Use Cases with Dan Boneh
November 30, 2022 14:00On this week’s episode, Anna and Kobi Gurkan chat with Dan Boneh, Professor of Computer Science at Stanford and Director of the Stanford Center for Blockchain Research. They discuss Dan’s more recent work in ZK Tech, both in education and in research, and review innovative use cases both Dan and his students have been working on since our last episode. It was great to have Dan back on the show, and we hope some of these ideas inspire listeners to jump in on the research or to build some p...
Episode 255: Verifying Consensus On-Chain with Succinct
November 23, 2022 14:00In this week’s episode, Anna and Tarun speak with Succinct Labs. Guests Uma Roy and John Guibas discuss their interest in ZK, their work with 0xparc and the goals of Succinct Labs, which aims to provide proof of consensus through SNARK-based light clients. The post Episode 255: Verifying Consensus On-Chain with Succinct appeared first on ZK Podcast.
Episode 254: Matt Green on bringing ZK into the wild and the compliance debate
November 16, 2022 14:00In this week’s episode, Anna and Josh Cincinnati chat with Matt Green, a cryptographer and professor at Johns Hopkins University. They explore Matt’s background in security, blockchain and privacy technologies. He shares his thoughts on early ZK blockchain research, the founding of Zcash, growth in the ZK space, how the industry is ready for tangible use-cases and navigating anonymity and regulatory bodies. This episode closes with a review of Matt’s perspective on the Tornado Cash sanctions...
Episode 253: A look into Namada and Anoma with Awa Sun Yin
November 09, 2022 14:00In this week's episode, Anna speaks with Awa Sun Yin, co-founder of Anoma & Namada. They discuss her background in crypto analytics, her work on infrastructure and privacy tech, and how the Anoma project came to be. The post Episode 253: A look into Namada and Anoma with Awa Sun Yin appeared first on ZK Podcast.
Episode 252: From Wireless to Blockchains with Pramod Viswanath
November 02, 2022 14:00In this week’s episode, Anna and Tarun chat with Pramod Viswanath, Professor of Engineering at Princeton and co-founder of Witness Chain. They discuss Pramod’s early work on wireless networks and the introduction of adversarial thinking into his research, his move over to blockchain, how the incentives of blockchain could be used within the wireless industry The post Episode 252: From Wireless to Blockchains with Pramod Viswanath appeared first on ZK Podcast.
Episode 251: Exploring RISC Zero with Brian Retford and Jeremy Bruestle
October 26, 2022 13:00In this week’s episode, Anna and Guillermo chat with Brian Retford and Jeremy Bruestle from Risc0. They discuss their previous work in cloud infrastructure and how ZK offered unique solutions to long standing scaling problems. The post Episode 251: Exploring RISC Zero with Brian Retford and Jeremy Bruestle appeared first on ZK Podcast.
Episode 250: What’s the Deal with Hash Functions?
October 19, 2022 13:00In this week’s episode, Anna and Kobi Gurkan speak with Dmitry Khovratovich, researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, Dusk Network, and ABDK Consulting and JP Aumasson, CSO at Taurus. The post Episode 250: What’s the Deal with Hash Functions? appeared first on ZK Podcast.
Episode 249: Impact of Tornado Cash: a Builders Perspective
October 12, 2022 13:00In this week’s episode, Anna and Martin Köppelmann, Co-Founder of Gnosis discuss the OFAC sanctions against Tornado Cash and the impact this has had on builders in the community. The post Episode 249: Impact of Tornado Cash: a Builders Perspective appeared first on ZK Podcast.