Zero Knowledge

In this episode, Anna and Guillermo are joined by Alex Obadia and Nicola Greco , co-authors of the Quantum Punks Manifesto , for a discussion at the intersection of quantum technology and cryptography. They explore the cultural and technical gaps between the quantum and crypto communities, sharing the story behind the manifesto, their vision for bridging these worlds and the applications that such...

In this episode, Anna and Nico speak with Vadim Lyubashevsky , research scientist at IBM Research, about the evolving field of lattice-based cryptography and its role in zero-knowledge systems. Vadim shares the history and mathematical foundations of lattices, and explains how they might be used to build post-quantum secure ZK proofs and SNARKs. The conversation covers the unique challenges of ada...

This week, Anna speaks with Lasha Antadze , co-founder of Rarilabs and Rarimo , about the evolution of digital identity systems. Lasha shares his journey from working with government eID systems to building decentralized identity solutions using zero-knowledge proofs. The conversation explores how Rarimo is taking a fundamentally different approach to identity verification by keeping all processin...

In this episode, Anna and Guillermo speak with Professor Jelena Vučković from Stanford's Nanoscale and Quantum Photonics Lab about the fascinating world of quantum engineering. Jelena explains different quantum technology platforms and how quantum entanglement serves as the foundation for various applications such as eavesdropping detection. They explore how researchers are developing chip-scale q...

In this episode Anna explores the contentious topic of ZK benchmarking with Conner Swann , founder of ProofLab . Drawing parallels with AI's development, they explore how tools like ProofLab could help standardize benchmarking across dimensions like speed, cost, and security. The conversation touches on the importance of formal verification and real-world workload testing, while considering how be...

In this episode Anna dives back into the topic of prover networks & prover marketplaces with Norbert Vadas , Head of Product at ZkCloud .  They kick off by mapping out different actors in the ZK supply chain, and then cover the variety of approaches and economic models behind prover marketplaces. They explore the ZkCloud system before diving into Norbert’s perspective on the future of large-sc...

This week, we present the third installment in the Zero Knowledge Systems story. In this episode, Anna chats with Austin Hill , one of the original founders of Zero Knowledge Systems . They explore the company’s early days, Austin’s background in tech, and what this scene in Montreal was like in the late ’90s. The conversation covers fundraising during the dot-com boom, Zero Knowledge Systems’s am...

This week Anna catches up with Aayush Gupta from ZK Email , covering the latest developments and real-world applications of the ZK Email protocol. They explore how the project serves as a bridge between Web2 systems and Web3 infrastructure and go on to discuss use cases like wallet-based account recovery, anonymous reputation-based communication, and digital provenance verification. This was an ex...

This week Anna chats with Jeffrey Scholz , founder of RareSkills . They discuss onboarding developers into ZK and dive into RareSkills' education program via The ZK Book and their ZK bootcamps. They explore strategies for breaking down complex topics, decisions on curriculum design, tool selection, and methodologies for enabling self-sufficient learning. A great listen for the listeners who want t...

This week Anna jumps back into the story of Zero Knowledge Systems with Jonathan Wilkins , cofounder Blockstream and Cloaked Services and previous employee of ZKS back in 2000. They explore the emergence of security culture in the 1990s, what led Jonathan to join Zero Knowledge Systems and his experience working on projects such as the Freedom Network. They discuss the office atmosphere and the re...

This week Anna and Tarun chat with Mert Mumtaz . Mert is the co-founder and CEO of Helius and is known for his contributions to the Solana ecosystem. They explore Mert’s background, his entry into the space, and his experiences during the 2022 market downturn and subsequent recovery. The conversation covers Solana’s positioning within the broader blockchain landscape and includes an overview of em...

Read transcript This week Anna catches up with Nico , Guillermo and Alex from Bain Capital Crypto to discuss two of their recent works; ZODA: Zero-Overhead Data Availability by the trio and The Accidental Computer by Alex & Guille. The group starts with a discussion about how papers like FRIDA and Foundations of Data Availability Sampling inspired ZODA and then cover the innovations presented...

This week, Anna and Nico chat with Andrew Lu and Vivek Bhupatiraju from Cursive .  They map out the timeline of their in-person activations and experiments using programmable cryptography, which they have been running since late 2023. By quickly developing small applications and products to test with real users, they have gathered tangible data about these innovations at various live conferences w...

We’re back with a new look and a new jingle! In this episode, ZK Podcast returns, and host Anna Rose shares a story from her past that strangely connects to the present day and the name "Zero Knowledge." Listen in as we kick off the show once again. Applications for zkSummit13 are now open, apply for your spot here . Check out the latest jobs in ZK at the ZK Podcast jobs board . Zero Knowledge Sys...

Summary This week, Anna catches up with cohosts, Tarun , Nico and Guillermo to do a look back at the zk research and applications that came out in 2024. They go on to discuss the challenges facing the ecosystem. And they wrap with a brief look forward, covering what to expect in ZK in 2025. This will be the last ep of 2024, thank you for joining us this year! Further Reading:  ZK12: Welcome to...

Summary In this week’s episode, Anna catches up with Dan Boneh , Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, Stanford University. They discuss the focus of his research today, covering new ZK research problems and themes. This includes work on lattice-based SNARKs, ZK for content provenance, ZK in the FHE context, updates on ZK in ML and more! Here’s some additional links for this ep...

Summary This week, Anna and Nico take a look back at some of the ZK Events produced in 2024 by the ZK Podcast, ZK Hack and other adjacent projects. Starting with the live ZK Jargon Decoder hosted in January and spanning the 10 months since, Anna and Nico share behind-the-scenes anecdotes, highlight key talks from the events and share some insight into how the programs for the zkSummit events are c...

Summary This week Anna chats with Mikerah Quintyne-Collins from HashCloak and Stoffel Labs . They discuss how Mikerah got her start in the crypto space and then dive into the work she did at ChainSafe and eventually at HashCloak. They cover Mikerah’s work on privacy preserving tech like ZK, TEE and MPC and learn about what drives her tweet game and the wisdom she has picked up over the years as a...

Summary This week Anna catches up with Zac Williamson & Ariel Gabizon from Aztec . They cover what each has been working on over the last year, Zac shared updates about the development of Aztec and the finalization of their underlying ZK system: MegaPlonk. Ariel discussed his latest research on IVC with his publications of the ProtoGalaxy and Stackproofs works and how properties of this system...

Summary This week Anna and Nico chat with Lukas Helminger and Ais Connolly from TACEO . They discuss Lukas & Ais’ early work in cryptography and privacy preserving technologies, the founding of TACEO and their recent work on coSNARKs - or Collaborative SNARKs - that combine MPC and ZK. They explore how these coSNARKs are created, their coCircom language, the characteristics of these systems as...

Summary This week Anna and Zaki Manian dive into the Cosmos ecosystem and ask the question: is Cosmos Dead? They explore key events, teams and players who worked on Cosmos during different eras before teasing out the strengths and structural flaws that made the project what it is today. The conversation wraps with a discussion around new initiatives aimed at reviving the ecosystem and aligning fac...

Summary In this week’s episode, Anna and Tarun catch up with Andrew Miller . They cover his early work on consensus, ZK and MPC before switching focus to the topic of his current work: TEEs. They map his evolving opinion on TEEs and explore why they could be seen as an optimal solution to many of the blockchain challenges. Here’s some additional links for this episode: Andrew Miller works SoK: Res...

Summary This week Anna and Nico chat with Arnaud Schenk , one of the original co-founders of Aztec and creator of the Polaris Fellowship . They discuss Arnaud’s recent blog post ‘On Trust Infrastructure’, exploring the down sides of a trustless system, the need to make online community building more possible and how programmable cryptography may play a role in these solutions. They explore the his...

Summary In this week’s episode Anna and Tarun chat with Naveen Durvasula about his recent work ‘ Robust Restaking Networks ’. They discuss Naveen’s early work on matching markets and how this led him to work on mechanism design before exploring how the concepts of restaking were first presented, and how both Naveen and Tarun have been working to better model the mechanisms underpinning restaking,...

Summary In this week’s episode, Anna chats with Connor O’Hara from Celestia . After discussing the latest ZK Hack Montréal event where Connor was a judge, they dive into his professional background, the ecosystems he has been a part of and what led him to work on Celestia. They then discuss various ZK-focused initiatives within the Celestia ecosystem. Here’s some additional links for this episode:...