Learn about the upcoming ZK Hack event in Montreal happening on August 9th to 11th. Attendees can hack on ZKTools, meet experts, and find collaborators. Partners like RISC-Zero, Novonet, Gevilot, and O1 Labs will showcase tools and offer bounties.

Varun Srinivasan, co-founder of Farcaster, discusses the innovative design space and applications of the project. Topics include decentralized social networks, combatting spam, storage rent, privacy, Sign in with Farcaster, user control, and community-based optimization.

Summary In this week’s episode, Anna and Guille chat with Ying Tong Lai from Geometry Research and Bryan Gillespie from Inversed Tech about their latest research and works to date. They dive into the pair’s recent work ‘SoK: Programmable Privacy in Distributed Systems’, exploring the classifications and frameworks being introduced. Here’s some additional links for this episode: SoK: Programmable Privacy in Distributed Systems by Benarroch, Gillespie, Lai and Miller Private Programmability in Zcash - Research Results and Community Discussion Zcash Halo2 GitHub Zk0x02 - An intro to Zcash and zkSNARKs - Ariel Gabizon (Zcash) Moving SNARKs from the generic to algebraic group model by Ariel Gabizon Explaining SNARKs Part I: Homomorphic Hidings by Ariel Gabizon Differential Privacy in Constant Function Market Makers by Chitra, Angeris and Evans A Note on Privacy in Constant Function Market Makers by Angeris, Evans and Chitra On Privacy Notions in Anonymous Communication by Kuhn, Beck, Schiffner, Jorswieck, and Strufe ZK Hack Montreal has been announced for Aug 9 - 11! Apply to join the hackathon here. Episode Sponsors 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)

Alessandro Chiesa and Eylon Yogev discuss constructing cryptographic proofs from ideal hash functions, exploring SNARKs and Alessandro's role in ZK systems. They delve into superposition queries, limitations of the random oracle model, and future standardizations. The podcast highlights the importance of systematizing cryptographic proofs for security and efficiency.

Guests Sims Gautam and Liam Eagen from Alpen Labs discuss utilizing ZK for Bitcoin L2s, BitVM, covenants, and SNARKnado. They explore the distinctions between Bridge Operators in Bitcoin and Eth L2s, creating DA and authentic synthetic assets, and ways to enhance trust models and security in Bitcoin.

Summary In this week’s episode Anna chats with Shumo and Yi from NEBRA. They discuss how NEBRA UPA, or Universal Proof Aggregation, can mitigate the high price of putting ZKPs on-chain. 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. Here’s some additional links for this episode: NEBRA NEBRA UPA Demo NEBRA Docs UPA Gas Costs by NEBRA MIT Bitcoin Club fflonK: a Fast-Fourier inspired verifier efficient version of PlonK by Gabizon and Williamson UniPlonK: PlonK with Universal Verifier by Chu, Gomes, Iglesias, Norton and Tebbs The Web3 Summit is back! The next edition will be happening in Berlin from Aug 19-21! You can head over to web3summit.com to apply, learn more and grab your tickets today. Episode Sponsors Launching soon, Namada is a proof-of-stake L1 blockchain focused on multichain, asset-agnostic privacy, via a unified shielded set. Namada is natively interoperable with fast-finality chains via IBC, and with Ethereum using a trust-minimized bridge. Follow Namada on Twitter @namada for more information and join the community on Discord discord.gg/namada. 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

There is no episode this week, but wanted to highlight the upcoming ZK Hack Montreal event, happening Aug 9-11 2024. This is the 4th IRL zk-focused hackathon produced by ZK Hack. Apply now to attend ZK Hack Montreal as a hacker and jump into zk. https://www.zkmontreal.com/ Find out more about ZK Hack as well at https://zkhack.dev/

Summary In 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. Here’s some additional links for this episode: Ligero Ligero: Lightweight Sublinear Arguments Without a Trusted Setup by Ames, Hazay, Ishai and Venkitasubramaniam Ligetron by Ligero Ligetron: Lightweight Scalable End-to-End Zero-Knowledge Proofs. Post-Quantum ZK-SNARKs on a Browser by Wang, Hazay and Venkitasubramaniam ℓ-Diversity: Privacy Beyond k-Anonymity by Machanavajjhala, Gehrke, Kifer and Venkitasubramaniam Efficient RSA Key Generation and Threshold Paillier in the Two-Party Setting by Hazay, Mikkelsen, Rabin, Toft and Nicolosi MeshCal.com Zero-Knowledge from Secure Multiparty Computation by Ishai, Kushilevitz, Ostrovsky and Sahai Introduction to MPC-in-the-Head by Carmit Hazay ZKBoo: Faster Zero-Knowledge for Boolean Circuits by Giacomelli, Madsen and Orlandi Episode 322: Definitions, Security and Sumcheck in ZK Systems with Justin Thaler Communication complexity of secure computation by Franklin and Yung ZK Hack Montreal has been announced for Aug 9 - 11! Apply to join the hackathon here. 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

Tracy Livengood, co-founder of Pluto, discusses web proofs, bringing private web data to on-chain apps with ZK. He shares insights on transitioning to the decentralized web, using TLSNotary stack, and developing future tool sets for the project.

Antonio Sanso and Youssef El Housni discuss new elliptic curves, Bandersnatch, Verkle Tries, and their work on Families of prime-order endomorphism-equipped embedded curves on pairing-friendly curves. They dissect cryptographic technicalities, explore applications of their work, and unravel the mysteries of Bandersnatch and twisted curves in systems like Ethereum.