Zero Knowledge

This week, Anna & Tarun take an in-depth look into AMMs with Guillermo Angeris, a PhD student in Stanford who co-authored a number of papers on fundamental AMM properties. They chat about how his work on Optimization Theory and Inverse Design can be applied to a DeFi context, as well as his most recent paper deals with privacy in AMMs, effectively demonstrating how superficial attempts at making a private AMM are doomed. During the conversation, Anna, Tarun and Guillermo chat about why AMMs today are so revolutionary and unique in the financial world, and why their success can be explained by optimization theory and convexity. But AMMs also have a number of shortcomings like front-running and impermanent loss, where Guillermo’s PhD work may just help find the solution.Here are a few links for this episode:Zero Knowledge Episode 153, Monsters in the Mempool with Dan Robinson Zero Knowledge Episode 168, Flashbots with Phil Daian and Stephane GosselineGuillermo’s latest paper on the challenges of implementing private AMMsGuillermo and Tarun’s first paper on Uniswap and Constant Function Market Makers, formalizing their practical qualities.Other papers by Guillermo and Tarun analyzing the optimal fee and bonding curve of CFMMs.Zero Knowledge Episode 103, Exploring VDFs with Joseph BonneauGuillermo’s papers on optimization problems and inverse design.Check out the Cosmos Privacy & ZKP Showcase -> https://hopin.com/events/cosmos-privacy-zkp-showcaseAnd the Zero Knowledge Gitcoin Grant -> https://gitcoin.co/grants/329/zero-knowledge-podcastThank you to this week’s sponsor, Aave. Aave is an open source, decentralised non-custodial liquidity protocol on Ethereum. With Aave, users can participate as depositors meaning they provide liquidity to earn a passive income. or they can also act as borrowers to borrow in an overcollateralized way or undercollateralized way (think: one-block liquidity Flash Loan). Aave just released an AMM Market where Uniswap and Balancer LPs can use their LP tokens as collateral. New types of collateral and AMM protocols can be added through the Aave Governance process as well. More information on that can be found here: https://medium.com/aave/aave-amm-market-released-73ae76a7cbc0To learn more visit aave.com to learn more*If you like what we do: *Follow us on Twitter - @zeroknowledgefmJoin us on TelegramCatch us on YoutubeRead up on the r/ZKPodcast subredditGive us feedback! -https://forms.gle/iKMSrVtcAn6BByH6A Support our Gitcoin GrantSupport us on the ZKPatreonDonate through coinbase.commerce*Or directly here: *ETH: 0xC0FFEE1B5083230a5154F55f253B6b6ae8F29B1aBTC: 1cafekGa3podM4fBxPSQc6RCEXQNTK8ZzZEC: t1R2bujRF3Hzte9ALHpMJvY8t5kb9ut9SpQ Read transcript

In this week’s episode, Anna has a one-on-one chat with Alex Ozdemir, a PhD student at Stanford researching formal methods, cryptography and distributed systems. Alex’s work is closely tied to the world of generalized computations within zero knowledge systems. He is one of the main developers of CirC, an infrastructure framework for building zero knowledge languages. In their conversation, Alex and Anna take a bird’s eye view of the current landscape of zk languages and libraries. Alex explains the history and current state-of-the-art of circuit-building tools, touching on libraries like Libsnark, Bellman and more comprehensive tools like Arkworks; hardware description languages like Circom; and the more dev-friendly family of RAM-register languages like ZoKrates, Pequin, Cairo, Leo and many more. Here, the race is still on as a number of academic and business-oriented teams grapple with limitations to memory access & performance given by zero knowledge proving systems.The latest Gitcoin Grants CLR matching program is live! Gitcoin is the easiest and most effective way to support Zero Knowledge and help us produce great content every week.With CLR matching, each contributor counts. Even $1 goes a long way thanks to the quadratic funding concept. To top it all off, Gitcoin supports zero knowledge-native payment solutions like ZkSync!Click here to reach our Gitcoin page.Here are all the links for this episode:An intro dive into the world of zero knowledge languages and ZoKratesCircom and Hermez with Jordi Baylina, Zero Knowledge episode 145zk-SNARKs for Scale with Matter Labs, Zero Knowledge episode 72zkStudyClub about CirCzkStudyClub on Polynomial CommitmentsStarkWare’s Eli Ben-Sasson on STARKs and Cairo, Zero Knowledge episode 96Pratyush Mishra on all things Arkworks, Zero Knowledge episode 169Alex’s Stanford page and paper on CirC.Thanks to this week’s sponsor, Mina Protocol.Mina is the world’s lightest blockchain, creating a private gateway between the real world and crypto.The layer-one protocol replaces the traditional blockchain with a zero-knowledge proof, ensuring a super-light and constant sized chain that allows participants to quickly sync and verify the network.The entire chain is, and always will be, about 22kb — even as it scales. And SNARK-powered dApps, called Snapps, allow access to verified real world data from any website for on-chain use.The ecosystem is growing fast ahead of Mina's upcoming mainnet launch, with validators and community members in more than 120 countries.There are still opportunities to get involved at the ground level. Visit minaprotocol.com to find out more.Join the community at Mina’s free virtual Illuminate Summit on March 28th, visit illuminate.minaprotocol.com to secure your spot.*If you like what we do: *Follow us on Twitter - @zeroknowledgefmJoin us on TelegramCatch us on YoutubeRead up on the r/ZKPodcast subredditGive us feedback! -https://forms.gle/iKMSrVtcAn6BByH6A Support our Gitcoin GrantSupport us on the ZKPatreonDonate through coinbase.commerce*Or directly here: *ETH: 0xC0FFEE1B5083230a5154F55f253B6b6ae8F29B1aBTC: 1cafekGa3podM4fBxPSQc6RCEXQNTK8ZzZEC: t1R2bujRF3Hzte9ALHpMJvY8t5kb9ut9SpQDOT: 14zPzb7ihiBeaUn9jdPW9cHKGBd9qtTuJE75hhW2CvzLh6rT Read transcript

In this week’s episode, Anna goes on a grand tour of the Polkadot ecosystem ahead of the launch of Parachains. In this multi-interview episode, she explores the Polkadot ecosystem, how teams are interacting with the existing tech stacks, what they are looking forward to, and how these networks may evolve in the future once Parachains go live.The first speaker is Fabian Gompf, VP at Parity, who explains what’s going on with parachain auctions, how Parity views its role in the Polkadot ecosystem, and how prospective builders can be rewarded. Then comes Derek Yoo from Moonbeam, who talks about the project’s ambitions and challenges as an “Ethereum on Polkadot” parachain. Next up is Ruitao Su from Acala, who describes his vision of Polkadot as a “United Nation.” Finally comes Lucas Vogelsang from Centrifuge, a very early Substrate adopter who has a unique view on what it means for a project to be a parachain.Here are a few useful links:Polkadot’s Parachain’s ExplainedEpisode 5 of Zero Knowledge where Fabi was first a guest on. Gavin Wood on Zero KnowledgeKusama, the chaotic canary network of Polkadot, on Zero KnowledgeWeb3’s Alistair and Jeff on Zero Knowledge All about ZK proofs in the Polkadot ecosystem.Common good parachainsMoonbeam’s siteAcala’s siteAcala’s Sovereign Wealth Fund concept.Centrifuge’s siteZero Knowledge episode on CentrifugeThis week’s intro features a mention of ZKValidator (ZKV) which is currently active on Cosmos, Near, Polkadot and Kusama and soon to be active on Mina. The ZKV is unique in that it is a validator that aims to advocate for and encourage privacy & zk tech on emerging PoS networks. The ZKV connects the zk community with the network community by running private workshops & roundtables, putting together blog posts and reports as well as running dedicated public events focused on these issues. Check out the recent NEAR privacy roundtable report, the Cosmos Privacy Showcase happening on March 26th and an upcoming Polkadot event in April/May. Email us events@zkvalidator.com if you are a privacy project building on these networks who wants to participate. Follow @zkvalidator on twitter to stay in the loop about all of our events.And if you are a token holder, and want to support the effort, be sure to stake to us on! Info on how to do so on Polkadot can be found here: https://zkvalidator.com/polkadot/*If you like what we do: *Follow us on Twitter - @zeroknowledgefmJoin us on TelegramCatch us on YoutubeRead up on the r/ZKPodcast subredditGive us feedback! -https://forms.gle/iKMSrVtcAn6BByH6A Support our Gitcoin GrantSupport us on the ZKPatreonDonate through coinbase.commerce*Or directly here: *ETH: 0xC0FFEE1B5083230a5154F55f253B6b6ae8F29B1aBTC: 1cafekGa3podM4fBxPSQc6RCEXQNTK8ZzZEC: t1R2bujRF3Hzte9ALHpMJvY8t5kb9ut9SpQDOT: 14zPzb7ihiBeaUn9jdPW9cHKGBd9qtTuJE75hhW2CvzLh6rT Read transcript

In this week’s episode, Anna and Tarun talk with Simon Peffers and Kelly Olson from Supranational, a startup focused on building specialised software and hardware for advanced cryptographic computation. Simon and Kelly talk about their recent work helping out the Ethereum Foundation with VDFs, as well as building a better SNARK algorithm for Protocol Labs’ Filecoin.They cover how specialised chips can push the boundaries of computation in a post-Moore’s law world, how hardware specialised for zero knowledge is optimised, and the challenges of building ASIC chips today.Here are a few links to set the stage about what they discussed:Zero Knowledge episode 103, Exploring VDFs with Joseph BonneauSupranational’s websiteSupranational’s Medium blogSimon's talk on hardware acceleration approach at SBC The 20 year old puzzle by Ron Rivest, which the Supranational folks solved just a few days late.Nvidia’s nerf of the RTX 3060 for Ethereum miningHow more specialized chips may be the solution to the end of Moore’s lawThank you to this week’s sponsor, Aave. Aave is an open source, decentralised non-custodial liquidity protocol on Ethereum. With Aave, users can participate as depositors meaning they provide liquidity to earn a passive income. or they can also act as borrowers to borrow in an overcollateralized way or undercollateralized way (think: one-block liquidity Flash Loan). A new feature is Credit Delegation, where users can delegate their credit to another person who can borrow against it Aave has an ecosystem grants program for anyone building anything that contributes to the Aave ecosystem. Check out the Aave developers portal to learn more: https://docs.aave.com/portal/ To learn more Visit aave.com to learn more*If you like what we do: *Follow us on Twitter - @zeroknowledgefmJoin us on TelegramCatch us on YoutubeRead up on the r/ZKPodcast subredditGive us feedback! -https://forms.gle/iKMSrVtcAn6BByH6A Support our Gitcoin GrantSupport us on the ZKPatreonDonate through coinbase.commerce*Or directly here: *ETH: 0xC0FFEE1B5083230a5154F55f253B6b6ae8F29B1aBTC: 1cafekGa3podM4fBxPSQc6RCEXQNTK8ZzZEC: t1R2bujRF3Hzte9ALHpMJvY8t5kb9ut9SpQ Read transcript

In this week’s episode, Anna and Robert Habermeier chat with Pratyush Mishra, co-author of the Arkworks toolkit. Arkworks is a collection of Rust libraries designed to simplify development with SNARKs, both for developing high-level application circuits and building custom SNARK implementations. Pratyush lays out what possibilities and trade-offs Arkworks offers, diving into the details of the Rust implementation and why it is the best language for developing cryptographic primitives. Anna, Rob and Pratyush then branch out into the philosophical and practical questions of open-source and blockchain development.Here are a few links to Arkworks and the topics they discussed:Arkworks GitHub page and Telegram group.Pratyush’s GitHub, Twitter and Berkeley pages.Bellman and Libsnark, some of the other libraries that are similar to Arkworks.The Celo and Mina protocols, two major projects using Arkworks.Here is a basic explainer of what projects like Arkworks are trying to do and why it’s useful, with a particular focus on ZoKrates, one of the languages Pratyush mentioned.Intros to Circom, Leo and Zinc, some of the higher level languages.An earlier episode with Robert Habermeier about the work he does on Polkadot.Be sure to subscribe to the zkMesh Newsletter - a monthly rundown of the latest in decentralised privacy-preserving technologies, privacy protocol development and zero knowledge systems research. Put together by Anna & Mikerah (HashCloak). Thank you to this week’s sponsor Least Authority.Least Authority is a security consulting and product development company known for pushing the limits on how to build privacy-respecting solutions. They are a team of security researchers, open source developers, privacy advocates and cryptographers. They have developed an end-to-end encrypted cloud storage product that minimizes the collection of any data related to its users, called PrivateStorage.PrivateStorage implements privacy and security by design, not by policy.PrivateStorage is based on Tahoe-LAFS an open source distributed file storePrivateStorage is launching in the second half of this year. Visit PrivateStorage.io to learn more and to sign up to be notified about its release. *If you like what we do: *Follow us on Twitter @zeroknowledgefmJoin us on TelegramCatch us on YoutubeRead up on the r/ZKPodcast subredditGive us feedback! https://forms.gle/iKMSrVtcAn6BByH6A Support our Gitcoin GrantSupport us on the ZKPatreonDonate through coinbase.commerce*Or directly here: *ETH: 0xC0FFEE1B5083230a5154F55f253B6b6ae8F29B1aBTC: 1cafekGa3podM4fBxPSQc6RCEXQNTK8ZzZEC: t1R2bujRF3Hzte9ALHpMJvY8t5kb9ut9SpQ Read transcript

In this week’s episode, Anna and James Prestwich chat with Phil Daian and Stephane Gosselin from the Flashbots project. Flashbots is a research and development organization formed to mitigate the negative externalities and existential risks posed by miner-extractable value (MEV) to smart-contract blockchainsThey talk about the Flashbots organization and mission as well as the evolving opportunities and dangers lurking in the mempool. Miner extractable value (MEV) is a measure devised to study consensus security by modeling the profit a miner (or validator, sequencer, or other privileged protocol actor) can make through their ability to arbitrarily include, exclude, or re-order transactions from the blocks they produce.Here are some links to previous episodes, the project & MEV:Discussing Plasma and Storage Rent with Karl Floersch and Phil DaianStorage rent with Phil DaianMonsters in the Mempool with Dan Robinson from Paradigm on Zero Knowledge PodcastFlash Boys 2.0: Frontrunning, Transaction Reordering, and Consensus Instability in Decentralized ExchangesFlashbots: Frontrunning the MEV crisis on the Flashbots blogFlashbots post on Ethresear.chFlashbotsFlashbots AlphaMEV research roadmapFlashbots MEV Fellowship - collective research processMEV Roast CalendarIn case you missed the announcement - zkSessions: DeFi+Privacy has been postponed until Feb 22. Grab your free spot here -> https://hopin.com/events/zksessions-defi-and-privacyThank you to this week’s sponsor Optimism PBC. Optimism PBC is a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC) building the Optimistic Ethereum Network and the Optimistic Virtual Machine to keep Ethereum half-full.They are calling all curious hackers and seasoned engineers to Come work on the cutting edge of the most interesting problems to push the limits of blockchains, VMs and compilers. No blockchain experience required!You'll work alongside global teams that are defining completely novel businesses and games that need our software to scale. If you're a developer who loves to see your code getting used by innovators around the world, then Optimism is your gateway to paradise.Please reach out to join@optimism.io if you're interested in becoming part of this compassionate, hard-working team! People of all backgrounds are encouraged to apply.*If you like what we do: *Follow us on Twitter - @zeroknowledgefmJoin us on TelegramCatch us on YoutubeRead up on the r/ZKPodcast subredditGive us feedback! -https://forms.gle/iKMSrVtcAn6BByH6A Support our Gitcoin GrantSupport us on the ZKPatreonDonate through coinbase.commerce*Or directly here: *ETH: 0xC0FFEE1B5083230a5154F55f253B6b6ae8F29B1aBTC: 1233mRsCJ9XK6XmCGozaZ49exxvzXLt3PAZEC: t1R2bujRF3Hzte9ALHpMJvY8t5kb9ut9SpQ Read transcript

In this week’s episode, Anna & Tarun take a step further into the NFT/Art space and chat with 2 content creators/entrepreneurs Andre Anjos (RAC) and Trevor McFedries (Brud) who are both making work that intersects with NFTs, crypto & other novel blockchain concepts. They discuss their respective works, and explore the new ways in which creators & influencers can engage with Blockchain tech and NFTs. They also try to imagine what living a digital reality actually means for the creation and consumption, or ownership of content. Here are a few of the links and projects mentioned: Dieter Shirley from Flow on ZKPodcastAlex from Rarible on ZKPodcastHeadless BrandsMichela's instagramZoraSuperrarefriend with benefits - fwb.helpRAC token on ZoraCheck out and sign up for the zkSessions event happening on Feb 15th! https://hopin.com/events/zksessions-defi-and-privacyIt's free and focused on DeFi & PrivacyThanks to this week’s sponsor Aave! Aave is an open source, decentralised non-custodial liquidity protocol on Ethereum. With Aave, users can participate as depositors meaning they provide liquidity to earn a passive income. or they can also act as borrowers to borrow in an overcollateralized way or undercollateralised way (think: one-block liquidity Flash Loan). Aave is decentralised and community-governed and has an ecosystem grants program for anyone building anything that contributes to Aave! DeFi-staked NFT collectibles game Aavegotchi originated as an Aave ecosystem grant. To learn more about the grant program visit aave.com and find the link to apply for the Aave grants program here!*If you like what we do: *Follow us on Twitter - @zeroknowledgefmJoin us on TelegramCatch us on YoutubeRead up on the r/ZKPodcast subredditGive us feedback! -https://forms.gle/iKMSrVtcAn6BByH6A Support our Gitcoin GrantSupport us on the ZKPatreonDonate through coinbase.commerce*Or directly here: *ETH: 0xC0FFEE1B5083230a5154F55f253B6b6ae8F29B1aBTC: 1cafekGa3podM4fBxPSQc6RCEXQNTK8ZzZEC: t1R2bujRF3Hzte9ALHpMJvY8t5kb9ut9SpQ Read transcript

In this week’s episode, Anna & Josh Cincinnati chat with Peter Van Valkenburgh, Director of Research at Coin Center. Coin Center is a non-profit research and advocacy group focused on the public policy issues facing cryptocurrency and decentralized computing technologies. In this conversation, they cover the various branches in the US system, how these interact with the crypto/blockchain community, what the process is for making regulation and how coincenter gets involved. Here are a few of the groups that they mention: FinCen: Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.SEC: U.S. Securities and Exchange CommissionCFTC: Commodities futures trading commissionHere are some handy links: Tangents from Coin Center: Rohan Greyhttps://www.coincenter.orgCoincenter Blog: Coin Center files second comment in FinCEN rulemaking challenging its authority to make the surveillance ruleCoincenter Blog: Join us in responding to an unfair and discriminatory midnight rulemakingStablecoin Tethering and Bank Licensing Enforcement (STABLE) ActInterpretive Letter #1172 OCC Chief Counsel's Interpretation on National Bank and Federal Savings Association Authority to HThanks for this week’s sponsor Interchain Foundation or ICFICF is focused on the research, development, and promotion of open, decentralized, network technologies like CosmosOne of the most recent developments in the Cosmos ecosystem is the Stargate upgrade. Stargate is the largest Cosmos upgrade yet, enabling blockchains to connect with each other using the first standardized protocol for inter-blockchain communication (IBC). Here is our episode with Chris Goes about IBC. If you want to apply to the Interchain Foundation Grants program, here is the link: apply.interchain.ioDeadline for this round is February 14th. Thanks again ICF! *If you like what we do: *Follow us on Twitter - @zeroknowledgefmJoin us on TelegramCatch us on YoutubeRead up on the r/ZKPodcast subredditGive us feedback! -https://forms.gle/iKMSrVtcAn6BByH6A Support our Gitcoin GrantSupport us on the ZKPatreon -https://www.patreon.com/zeroknowledge*Or directly here: *ETH: 0xC0FFEE1B5083230a5154F55f253B6b6ae8F29B1aBTC: 1cafekGa3podM4fBxPSQc6RCEXQNTK8ZzZEC: t1R2bujRF3Hzte9ALHpMJvY8t5kb9ut9SpQ Read transcript

This week, Anna and Tarun chat with Stani Kulechov, co-founder of Aave, about the origin and evolution of the project, the changing DeFi landscape, collateralized debt in crypto, Flash Loans, Flash Minting, Credit Delegation and the future of DeFi. Quick recap: A Flashloan is an uncollatoralised loan which must be issued and repaid in the same transaction before the blockchain updates the user’s account balances. If it isn’t repaid in this time, the transaction will fail.We have discussed Flashloans on the show before see this previous episode: https://www.zeroknowledge.fm/118Thank you to this week’s sponsor Hermez Protocol! Hermez is a Layer 2 solution that scales token transfers on top of Ethereum and which can handle up to 2000 transactions per second. Designed for high-frequency tokens, Hermez is a zk rollup which leverages zk-SNARKs for validity proofs and with on-chain data availability. Hermez's zero-knowledge circuits are developed using iden3’s circuit compiler language, Circom. They also introduce a novel consensus algorithm, Proof-of-Donation, that gives 40% of each transaction fee back to Ethereum community projects as a donation, thereby supporting Ethereum development.After passing two security audits, Hermez is running a bug bounty program, offering up to 100 ETH to whoever discovers any critical vulnerabilities. We recently had Jordi Baylina, Technical Lead at Hermez, on the show for an interview - you can find that episode here. Learn more about the project and bug bounty at https://hermez.io/If you like what we do: Follow us on Twitter - @zeroknowledgefm -https://twitter.com/zeroknowledgefmJoin us on Telegram -https://t.me/joinchat/B_81tQ57-ThZg8yOSx5gjACatch us on Youtube -https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYWsYz5cKw4wZ9Mpe4kuM_gRead up on the r/ZKPodcast subreddit -https://www.reddit.com/r/zkpodcast Give us feedback! -https://forms.gle/iKMSrVtcAn6BByH6A Support our Gitcoin Grant -https://gitcoin.co/grants/329/zero-knowledge-podcast-2Support us on the ZKPatreon -https://www.patreon.com/zeroknowledgeOr directly here: ETH: 0xC0FFEE1B5083230a5154F55f253B6b6ae8F29B1aBTC: 1cafekGa3podM4fBxPSQc6RCEXQNTK8ZzZEC: t1R2bujRF3Hzte9ALHpMJvY8t5kb9ut9SpQ Read transcript

This week, Anna and guest co-host James Prestwich chat with David Vorick from Skynet Labs about the scope and goals of the Skynet project. They discuss the journey from earlier work on Sia & distributed data to Skynet, SkyDB, and their idea for Recursive Content Monetization - a new model to pay online creators and content owners. They also chat about the SkyFeed project - a decentralised Twitter like project. In this part of the conversation, they explore how the decentralised community could potentially remove the harm done by the social chat algorithms, but also the potential impact - and danger - that fully decentralised systems can have. Here are some helpful links: https://siasky.net/https://sia.tech/https://support.siasky.net/article/nz6p6876e3-skynet-resourceshttps://blog.sia.tech/skydb-a-mutable-database-for-the-decentralized-web-7170beeaa985https://blog.sia.tech/skynet-the-future-of-nebulous-c9922eb53456https://joinmastodon.org/Thanks to this week’s sponsor Aave. Aave Protocol is an open source and non-custodial protocol where users can earn interest on deposits and borrow assets Aave Protocol also features access to innovative DeFi building blocks like Flash Loans. They are now introducing a new feature is Credit Delegation, where users can delegate their credit to another person who can borrow against it For anyone thinking of contributing to the ecosystem, check out the Grants Program - here is the link: https://docs.aave.com/portal/  Also vIsit aave.com or join the Aave Discord #developers channel https://aave.com/discord to find out more! If you like what we do: Follow us on Twitter - @zeroknowledgefm -https://twitter.com/zeroknowledgefmJoin us on Telegram -https://t.me/joinchat/B_81tQ57-ThZg8yOSx5gjACatch us on Youtube -https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYWsYz5cKw4wZ9Mpe4kuM_gRead up on the r/ZKPodcast subreddit -https://www.reddit.com/r/zkpodcast Give us feedback! -https://forms.gle/iKMSrVtcAn6BByH6A Support our Gitcoin Grant -https://gitcoin.co/grants/329/zero-knowledge-podcast-2Support us on the ZKPatreon -https://www.patreon.com/zeroknowledgeOr directly here: ETH: 0xC0FFEE1B5083230a5154F55f253B6b6ae8F29B1aBTC: 1cafekGa3podM4fBxPSQc6RCEXQNTK8ZzZEC: t1R2bujRF3Hzte9ALHpMJvY8t5kb9ut9SpQ Read transcript