In this episode, Anna Rose and Kobi Gurkan chat with Vikas Rushi from PSE, and Ying Tong to explore two topics at the intersection of ZK and the real-world data: zkPDF and zkID. 

First they dive into zkPDF, a set of tools for proving facts on digitally signed PDFs. Vikas talks about the challenges of parsing data inside zkVMs—working with decades-old specifications that use many different encodings, and tackling practical use-cases like bank statements and ID verification. They also explain how issuers, such as India’s DigiLocker, can generate proofs in a way that protects individual privacy.

Next they cover zkID and the EF’s work on building a system that would meet the EU’s Digital Identity Framework requirements ahead of its 2026 rollout. Ying Tong explains how the EF’s work on zkID differs from existing zk-based identity projects, particularly through its device-binding requirements, the cryptographic community’s feedback to the EU Commission, the trade-offs between proof systems, PSE’s work on standards and more.

They wrap up with a chat about the challenges of revocation in both systems, and what’s next for the projects. 

Related links:

Episode 367: Local-First with grjte and Goblin Oats

Episode 366: Bringing ID Onchain with Self

Episode 363: Bringing ZK to Google Wallet with Abhi and Matteo

Episode 362: zkTLS with Maddy from Reclaim

Episode 358: Building ZK Registries Onchain with Rarimo

Episode 353: Making ZK More Human with ZK Email

Episode 330: Frameworks for Programmable Privacy with Ying Tong and Bryan Gillespie

Community Privacy Residency

Anon Aadhaar

DigiLocker

zkID Github

zk-promises: Anonymous Moderation, Reputation, and Blocking from Anonymous Credentials with Callbacks

 

 

Check out the latest jobs in ZK at the ZK Podcast Jobs Board. 

 

 

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In this episode, Anna Rose and Tarun Chitra chat with Miranda Christ, a computer science PhD student at Columbia University, about the intersection of cryptography and AI through watermarking techniques. Miranda shares her research on developing imperceptible ways to prove that content was created by AI models, covering everything from simple red-green word lists to sophisticated pseudorandom error-correcting codes.

 

The discussion explores the cryptographic properties of watermarks - including completeness, soundness, and undetectability - and how these parallel the properties we see in zero-knowledge proof systems. Miranda explains how watermarking differs from other cryptographic approaches like ZKML by only modifying the sampling process rather than the underlying model weights, making it computationally lightweight and practical for deployment.

 

Related links:

Episode 206: Distilling DeFi Primitives with Guillermo, Alex and Tarun

My AI Safety Lecture for UT Effective Altruism

Google SynthID

Amazon Public Watermark Detector

How ChatGPT could embed a ‘watermark’ in the text it generates - New York Times

Wall Street Journal on OpenAI not Deploying Watermarks

A Watermark for Large Language Models

Undetectable Watermarks for Language Models

Watermarks in the Sand: Impossibility of Strong Watermarking for Generative Models

Pseudorandom Error-Correcting Codes

Ideal Pseudorandom Codes

 

 

Check out the latest jobs in ZK at the ZK Podcast Jobs Board. 

 

 

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In this episode, Anna Rose welcomes back Daniel Kang professor at UIUC and founding technical advisor at VAIL, for an update on ZKML and how the space has evolved since early 2023. Daniel covers the 2023-2024 cohort of ZKML tools including zkCNN, zkLLM, EZKL, and his original ZKML project, while introducing his new project ZKTorch, which offers a flexible hybrid of specialized and general-purpose approaches.

The discussion explores practical applications like verified FaceID, proof of prompt, and proof of training, along with the technical challenges of adding ZK proofs to machine learning models. Daniel shares insights on the performance trade-offs between specialized cryptographic systems and generic circuits, and how ZKTorch aims to offer both flexibility and speed for proving ML inference.

Related links:

ZKTorch: Open-Sourcing the First Universal ZKML Compiler for Real-World AI

ZKTorch: Compiling ML Inference to Zero-Knowledge Proofs via Parallel Proof 

ZK Torch GitHub

Accumulation by Bing-Jyue Chen, Lilia Tang, Daniel Kang

Episode 369: Ligero for Memory-Efficient ZK with Muthu

Episode 356: ZK Benchmarks with Conner Swann

Episode 364: AI and ZK Auditing with David Wong

Episode 265: Where ZK and ML intersect with Yi Sun and Daniel Kang

Bonus Episode: zkpod.ai & Attested Audio Experiment with Daniel Kang

ZK13: ZKTorch: Efficiently Compiling ML Models to Zero-Knowledge Proof Protocols - Daniel Kang

AI Agent Benchmarks are Broken

VAIL

zkCNN: Zero Knowledge Proofs for Convolutional Neural Network Predictions and Accuracy

zkLLM: Zero Knowledge Proofs for Large Language Models

MLPerf Inference: Datacenter

 

 

Check out the latest jobs in ZK at the ZK Podcast Jobs Board. 

 

 

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In this episode, Anna Rose and Guillermo Angeris catch up with Muthu Venkitasubramaniam, Professor of Computer Science at Georgetown University and cofounder of Ligero. They discuss how Ligero’s small memory footprint makes it a good choice for client-side proving, as well as the importance of programmable compliance in blockchain. The conversation explores the differences between ‘MPC in the head’ and error-correcting code perspectives, and how well-established primitives influence the design of modern ZK systems. They also debate the challenge of adding ‘ZK’ privacy back into systems without it, why proving EVM traces may be absurd, and what kinds of guarantees might exist around the results of vibe coding.

Related links:

Episode 363: Bringing ZK to Google Wallet with Abhi and Matteo

Episode 326: MPC & ZK in Ligero and Ligetron

ZK13: Ligerito: A Small and Concretely Fast Polynomial Commitment Scheme - Kobi Gurkan

ZK13: Vibe coding ZK Apps with Ligetron ZK Platform - Muthu Venkitasubramaniam 

ZK10: Analysis of zkVM Designs - Wei Dai & Terry Chung 

Ligerito: A Small and Concretely Fast Polynomial Commitment Scheme

Ligero++ - Reducing proof length of Ligero

Adding Zero-Knowledge to STARKs - Talk by Ulrich Haböck

Aurora - comparing prover times of STARKs vs Ligero

WYSTERIA: A Programming Language for Generic, Mixed-Mode Multiparty Computations

Samaritan: Linear-time Prover SNARK from New Multilinear Polynomial Commitments

Brakedown: Linear-time and field-agnostic SNARKs for R1CS

Intro to MPC-in-the-Head

 

 

Check out the latest jobs in ZK at the ZK Podcast Jobs Board. 

 

 

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In this episode, Anna Rose and Nico Mohnblatt speak with Dan and Sinu from TLSNotary to trace the project’s journey from early Bitcoin forum ideas to its current role as a foundational protocol maintained by PSE. Dan recounts the origins of TLSNotary as a tool for cryptographically proving web data, while Sinu explains how the project was revived to provide modern TLS attestation.

The conversation covers the use-cases for verifiable web proofs, the different modes these interactive protocols can take, and the broader impact of this technology on leveraging siloed user data.

Related links:

Episode 325: Web Proofs with Tracy from Pluto

Episode 354: The Founding of Zero Knowledge Systems with Austin Hill

Episode 362: zkTLS with Maddy from Reclaim

2013 Blog Post ‘tlsnotary - cryptographic proof of fiat transfer for p2p exchanges’

TLSNotary Whitepaper

DECO: Liberating Web Data Using Decentralized Oracles for TLS

Primus Labs (Previously PADO)

Town Crier: An Authenticated Data Feed for Smart Contracts

 

 

Check out the latest jobs in ZK at the ZK Podcast Jobs Board. 

 

 

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In this episode, Anna Rose and Nico Mohnblatt speak with Goblin Oats from Tonk and grjte from Bain Capital Crypto to explore the emerging world of local-first architecture.

Goblin shares the evolution of Tonk from an experimental lab working on blockchain games to a product that enables anyone to build personalised local-first software using natural language. grjte discusses her Groundmist project exploring personal data lakes and the intersection between local-first systems and the AT Protocol. The conversation explores the technical foundations of local-first software, including Conflict-free Replicated Data Types (CRDTs), parallels with blockchain systems, and how ZK proofs show up within cloud-optional architecture.

Related links:

Tonk GitHub

Groundmist

Dappicom — NES Emulation in Noir

Speakeasy

Automerge CRDT

AT Protocol

Ink & Switch: Local-first software

Homomorphically Encrypting CRDTs

Beelay - A new sync protocol for Automerge

Jess Martin - The last mile of Local First

Local-First Conf 2025

 

 

Check out the latest jobs in ZK at the ZK Podcast Jobs Board. 

 

 

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In this episode, Anna Rose speaks with Florent Tavernier from Self and Marek Olszewski from Self and Celo to explore how Self are bringing identity onchain using ZK, the Sybil protection that offers, and the origins of OpenPassport.

The discussion covers Self's approach to supporting different forms of ID, the challenges of disparate cryptographic standards, and how government signatures can be used to bootstrap onchain identity systems. 

Related links:

Self Protocol on X/Twitter

Episode 364: AI and ZK Auditing with David Wong

Episode 363: Bringing ZK to Google Wallet with Abhi and Matteo

Episode 358: Building ZK Registries Onchain with Rarimo

Episode 93: Light clients & ZKPs with Celo

Celo

ZK Email

Modular Summit 3 panel (with Florent and Anna)

Plumo: An Ultralight Blockchain Client

0xPARC

MiniPay

Map of each country’s cryptography choices

Aadhaar

p0tion: Toolkit for Groth16 Phase 2 Trusted Setup ceremonies.

 

 

Check out the latest jobs in ZK at the ZK Podcast Jobs Board. 

 

 

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In this episode, Anna Rose and Tarun Chitra catch up with Kostas Kryptos from Mysten Labs to explore the latest ZK innovations being built on Sui. Kostas shares updates on zkLogin and introduces zkAt (ZK Authenticator), a new research project enabling programmable and updatable access control for accounts where Groth16's trusted setup and the generated toxic waste is used in a very novel way. 

This discussion also covers Sui's ambitious plans to become quantum-ready, including their innovative approach to transitioning existing EdDSA accounts to post-quantum security using STARKs without requiring users to change their addresses. They touch on ZK Tunnels, working with the Greek stock market, and how ZK is breaking out of the  web2/web3 paradigm.

Related links:

Episode 257: Proof of Solvency with Kostas Chalkias

Episode 302: ZK for web2 interop with zkLogin & ZK Email

Episode 363: Bringing ZK to Google Wallet with Abhi and Matteo

Zero-knowledge Authenticator for Blockchain: Policy-private and Obliviously Updateable

zkLogin

All About Account Abstraction

Zengo Crypto Wallet

Trusted Setup Ceremony

 

 

Check out the latest jobs in ZK at the ZK Podcast Jobs Board. 

 

 

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In this episode, Anna sits down with David Wong from zkSecurity to discuss the impact of AI on the field of zero-knowledge auditing. David shares how his team is integrating AI agents into their workflow, the opportunities and challenges this brings, and how the role of the human auditor is evolving as AI becomes more capable.

They also cover the unique aspects of auditing ZK-based systems, how this is different from smart contract auditing, and the broader implications of AI for security in cryptography and blockchain. The conversation touches on the ethical considerations of AI in security, the future of the auditing profession, and the ways ZK and AI are increasingly intersecting.

Related links:

Episode 290: Exploring, Teaching and Auditing ZK with David Wong

Episode 76: Sean Bowe on SNARKs, Trusted Setups & Elliptic Curve Cryptography

Proof is in the Pudding Session 04: Lattice-Based SNARKs and Post-Quantum Cryptography

Fiat-Crypto: Synthesizing Correct-by-Construction Code for Cryptographic Primitives

Ethproofs Call #2 | real-time proving

Folding Circom circuits: a ZKML case study - Dr. Cathie So

 

 

Check out the latest jobs in ZK at the ZK Podcast Jobs Board. 

 

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In this episode, Anna and Nico speak with Abhi Shelat and Matteo Frigo from Google about their work integrating zero-knowledge proofs into the Google Wallet. They discuss the technical decisions behind the Anonymous Credentials for ECDSA system, including the challenge of designing a proof system where proving must be efficient enough to run on the client device in a large-scale consumer application, and how they design a system using sumcheck and Ligero to overcome NTT issues.

The conversation also touches on the process of standardization, the return of ZK to its privacy roots, and the broader significance of seeing advanced cryptography adopted by a major tech company outside the blockchain space.

Links:

Episode 303: A Dive into Binius with Jim Posen

Anonymous credentials from ECDSA

libZK: a zero-knowledge proof library

European Digital Identity

FFTW

Doubly-Efficient zkSNARKs Without Trusted Setup

Ligero: Lightweight Sublinear Arguments Without a Trusted Setup

Everything provable is provable in zero-knowledge

Circle STARKs

Highlights of libZK, the Google Wallet ZKP

Parallel prefix

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Register for ZK Hack Berlin happening 20 - 22 June!

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Boundless is a universal zero-knowledge protocol developed by RISC Zero, that lets anyone access abundant verifiable compute, regardless of the blockchain they are using. Learn more about Boundless at beboundless.xyz 

---------------

**If you like what we do:**

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Read transcript