Nico Mohnblatt, a notable expert in zero-knowledge cryptography, joins to reflect on 2024's ZK events. He shares behind-the-scenes anecdotes from the ZK Jargon Decoder and highlights key discussions from the zkSummit events. The duo explores the collaborative spirit of past gatherings and innovations in cryptographic proofs. They also delve into the educational impact of ZK Whiteboard Sessions and the importance of diverse speaker proposals in the crypto community. Insights into future developments in privacy technologies round out their conversation.

Mikerah Quintyne-Collins, a technical founder known for her work on privacy-preserving technologies, shares her journey in the crypto space. She discusses her early experiences at ChainSafe and the founding of HashCloak. The conversation dives into the challenges and advancements in Multi-Party Computation (MPC) and critiques the narratives surrounding privacy technologies. Mikerah also highlights the importance of memes in her tweet game and advocates for a collaborative approach among various cryptographic solutions in the evolving world of decentralized finance.

Just sharing 2 updates: 1) the ZK Whiteboard sessions are BACK with a second season! These videos will be released every 2 weeks for the next 3 months on ZK Hack channels - See Season 1 videos here: https://zkhack.dev/whiteboard/ See Season 2 Module 1 here: https://zkhack.dev/whiteboard/s2m1/ 2) The Zero Knowledge Podcast (aka this show!) will take a pause on the weekly cadence of the show starting Oct 16th until the end of 2024. Expect last 2 episodes on Oct 9 and Oct 16 There may be some additional episodes released this year (but no plans yet) Keep an eye on our website and twitter for updates about the show (and soon an updated website!)

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 systems brought him and Zac to start working together again. Here’s some additional links for this episode: Episode 273: History of Plonk, Noir, and the building of Aztec 3 Episode 274: SNARKs: A Trilogy with Ariel Gabizon 5:51 * zkSummit: plookup: Speeding up the PLONK prover - Zac Williamson & Ariel Gabizon 10:49 * ProtoGalaxy: Efficient ProtoStar-style folding of multiple instances by Liam Eagen and Ariel Gabizon 13:01 * HyperNova: Recursive arguments for customizable constraint systems by Kothapalli and Setty 13:01 * ProtoStar: Generic Efficient Accumulation/Folding for Special Sound Protocols by Bünz and Chen 27:24 * cq: Cached quotients for fast lookups by Eagen, Fiore and Gabizon 34:54 * Delegating Computation: Interactive Proofs for Muggles by Goldwasser, Kalai and Rothblum 34:54 * Unlocking the lookup singularity with Lasso by Setty, Thaler and Wahby 36:36 * Stackproofs: Private proofs of stack and contract execution using Protogalaxy by Eagen, Gabizon, Sefranek, Towa and Williamson 54:32 * Accumulation without Homomorphism by Bünz, Mishra, Nguyen and Wang 55:24 * Aztec.network Check out the ZK Jobs Board for the latest jobs in ZK at jobsboard.zeroknowledge.fm zkSummit12 is happening in Lisbon next week on Oct 8th! Buy your ticket at zksummit.com, spots are limited! Episode Sponsors Attention, all projects in need of server-side proving, kick start your rollup with Gevulot's ZkCloud, the first zk-optimized decentralized cloud! Get started with a free trial plus extended grant opportunities for premier customers until Q1 2025. Register at Gevulot.com. Aleo is a new Layer-1 blockchain that achieves the programmability of Ethereum, the privacy of Zcash, and the scalability of a rollup. As Aleo is gearing up for their mainnet launch in Q1, this is an invitation to be part of a transformational ZK journey. Dive deeper and discover more about Aleo at http://aleo.org/. If you like what we do: Find all our links here! @ZeroKnowledge | Linktree Subscribe to our podcast newsletter Follow us on Twitter @zeroknowledgefm Join us on Telegram Catch us on [YouTube](www.youtube.com/channel/UCYWsYz5cKw4wZ9Mpe4kuM_g)

Lukas Helminger, a pioneer in cryptography and privacy tech, joins Ais Connolly, a foundational force at TACEO, to discuss their innovative work on coSNARKs. They break down how these Collaborative SNARKs merge multi-party computation with zero-knowledge proofs. The duo explores practical applications, the coCircom language, and the evolution of their projects. They also touch on the implications of decentralized uniqueness verification and the challenges of biometric data privacy in the blockchain space.

Zaki Manian, a key player in the Cosmos ecosystem, delves into whether Cosmos is nearing its end. He discusses its turbulent history, including the aftermath of the Luna crash and the challenges facing leadership and community engagement. Zaki highlights the ongoing efforts to revive Cosmos through innovation, confronting issues like disillusionment among contributors. They explore the need for better collaboration and the potential of new initiatives to unify the fragmented ecosystem, prompting a critical look at its future.

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: 3:59 * Andrew Miller works 5:32 * SoK: Research Perspectives and Challenges for Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies by Bonneau, Miller, Clark, Narayanan, Kroll, Felten 11:45 * Zerocash: Decentralized Anonymous Payments from Bitcoin by Ben-Sasson, Chiesa, Garman, Green, Miers, Tromer, and Virza 21:33 * The Honey Badger of BFT Protocols by Miller, Xia, Croman, Shi, and Song 28:50 * DelegaTEE: Brokered Delegation Using Trusted Execution Environments by Matetic, Schneider, Miller, Juels and Capkun 33:02 * Ratel: MPC-extensions for Smart Contracts by Li, Soska, Huang, Bellemare, Quintyne-Collins, Wang, Liu, Song and Miller 33:02 * Ekiden: A Platform for Confidentiality-Preserving, Trustworthy, and Performant Smart Contracts by Cheng, Zhang, Kos, He, Hynes, Johnson, Juels, Miller and Song 1:01:26 * Demo of IT from Xyn and Ryan 1:01:26 * Complete Knowledge: Preventing Encumbrance of Cryptographic Secrets by Kelkar, Babel, Daian, Austgen, Buterin and Juels 1:06:20 * Off-Chain Coordination via Liquefaction - James Austgen | MEV-SBC ’24 zkSummit12 is happening in Lisbon on Oct 8th! Applications to attend are now open at zksummit.com, apply today as tickets are limited! Episode Sponsors Attention, all projects in need of server-side proving, kick start your rollup with Gevulot's ZkCloud, the first zk-optimized decentralized cloud! Get started with a free trial plus extended grant opportunities for premier customers until Q1 2025. Register at Gevulot.com. Aleo is a new Layer-1 blockchain that achieves the programmability of Ethereum, the privacy of Zcash, and the scalability of a rollup. As Aleo is gearing up for their mainnet launch in Q1, this is an invitation to be part of a transformational ZK journey. Dive deeper and discover more about Aleo at http://aleo.org/. If you like what we do: Find all our links here! @ZeroKnowledge | Linktree Subscribe to our podcast newsletter Follow us on Twitter @zeroknowledgefm Join us on Telegram Catch us on [YouTube](www.youtube.com/channel/UCYWsYz5cKw4wZ9Mpe4kuM_g)

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 history of computer culture, the rejection of institutions by mid-90s internet culture and how the seeds for this were set by the 60s counterculture. Here’s some additional links for this episode: 05:09 * Episode 75: Exploring Aztec with Zac Williamson 05:09 * Episode 176: Zk-zk-rollup & zk.money with Zac and Joe from Aztec 05:09 * Episode 273: History of Plonk, Noir, and the building of Aztec 3 07:38 * Episode 237: Exploring ZK Research with Jens Groth 20:01 * Into the deep end: making sense of PLONK - Zac Williamson (CTO, Aztec Protocol) 23:55 * Collaborative Circles: Friendship Dynamics and Creative Work by Michael P. Farrell 27:05 * No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior by Joshua Meyrowitz 29:33 * On Trust Infrastructure by Arnaud Schenk 39:28 * Crypto's Three Body Problem by Lotti, Shorin, Hart 48:13 * Plurality philosophy in an incredibly oversized nutshell by Vitalik Buterin 52:21 * From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism by Fred Turner 52:21 * The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe On Crypto Article by Arnaud Schenk Knot Group Wiki Check out the ZK Jobs Board for the latest jobs in ZK at jobsboard.zeroknowledge.fm zkSummit12 is happening in Lisbon on Oct 8th! Applications to attend are now open at zksummit.com, apply today as early bird tickets are limited! Episode Sponsors Attention, all projects in need of server-side proving, kick start your rollup with Gevulot's ZkCloud, the first zk-optimized decentralized cloud! Get started with a free trial plus extended grant opportunities for premier customers until Q1 2025. Register at Gevulot.com. Aleo is a new Layer-1 blockchain that achieves the programmability of Ethereum, the privacy of Zcash, and the scalability of a rollup. As Aleo is gearing up for their mainnet launch in Q1, this is an invitation to be part of a transformational ZK journey. Dive deeper and discover more about Aleo at http://aleo.org/. If you like what we do: Find all our links here! @ZeroKnowledge | Linktree Subscribe to our podcast newsletter Follow us on Twitter @zeroknowledgefm Join us on Telegram Catch us on [YouTube](www.youtube.com/channel/UCYWsYz5cKw4wZ9Mpe4kuM_g)

Naveen Durvasula, a matching markets and mechanism design expert, joins Tarun to dive deep into restaking in cryptocurrency. They explore the foundations of restaking mechanisms and how they can be optimized. The conversation also touches on the complexities of validator decision-making and the risks tied to Alternative Validator Services. Furthermore, they discuss the intersection of theoretical concepts and practical applications in blockchain, emphasizing the need for clarity in understanding operational dynamics.

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: Episode 311: The Launch of Celestia and Beyond 03:22 ZK Hack Montréal 08:08 ZK Hack Devfolio 24:33 Episode 151: John Adler on Optimistic vs ZK Rollup and the data availability problem 30:24 Episode 208: Digging into Data Availability with Ismail Khoffi from Celestia 41:26 Episode 220: The Road to Plonky2 with Brendan and Daniel from Polygon Zero 46:49 Vitalik Buterin Endgame Blog Post 49:41 Light Nodes Everywhere: Why & How - Connor O'Hara at Modulard Summit 56:29 ZK11: 1 Circuit, 5 Rollups: Building a Re-Usable DA Integration for ZK Rollups - Connor O'Hara Check out the ZK Jobs Board for the latest jobs in ZK at jobsboard.zeroknowledge.fm Episode Sponsors Get ready to build with intention. Anoma is the universal intent machine, introducing a new era of applications where you define the outcomes you want. Follow Anoma on X to learn more at x.com/anoma Aleo is a new Layer-1 blockchain that achieves the programmability of Ethereum, the privacy of Zcash, and the scalability of a rollup. As Aleo is gearing up for their mainnet launch in Q1, this is an invitation to be part of a transformational ZK journey. Dive deeper and discover more about Aleo at http://aleo.org/. If you like what we do: Find all our links here! @ZeroKnowledge | Linktree Subscribe to our podcast newsletter Follow us on Twitter @zeroknowledgefm Join us on Telegram Catch us on [YouTube](www.youtube.com/channel/UCYWsYz5cKw4wZ9Mpe4kuM_g)