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 adapting lattice techniques to zero-knowledge, explores the tradeoffs relative to hash-based constructions, and highlights the importance of developing quantum-safe standards for the future of cryptography.

Related links:

Episode 345: Latest ZK Research with Dan Boneh

Episode 288: Quantum Cryptography with Or Sattath

LaBRADOR: Compact Proofs for R1CS from Module-SIS⋆

IBM’s post-quantum NIST published standards

Project11

Minkowski’s Geometry of Numbers

LLL reduction

Shortest vector problem

Basic Lattice Cryptography: The concepts behind Kyber (ML-KEM) and Dilithium (ML-DSA) by Vadim Lyubashevsky

 

 

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Missing Link are a talent team built for the Web3 era, helping projects across the ecosystem connect with the right candidates at the right time. Whether you're an established project or a startup searching for specialized talent, Missing Link can help. Visit their website at missing-link.io. 

 

 

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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 processing client-side, from passport scanning to biometric verification. This enables new use cases like censorship-resistant voting systems and privacy-preserving account recovery, while avoiding the traditional pitfalls of centralized identity providers.

The discussion also covers the challenges of building trust in cryptographic systems, the potential applications of client-side ZK proofs for AI governance, and how Rarimo is working to make identity tools that are both powerful and accessible to everyday users. This episode provides a fascinating look at how zero-knowledge proofs are reshaping our understanding of digital identity and privacy.

Further reading:

On-Chain Reputation & Identity Building with Sismo

Coordinating Provers with Norbert from ZkCloud

STORK 2.0

eIDAS

Freedomtool

Account recovery demo at Denver

 

 

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Missing Link are a talent team built for the Web3 era, helping projects across the ecosystem connect with the right candidates at the right time. 

Whether you're an established project or a startup searching for specialized talent, Missing Link can help. Visit their website at missing-link.io. 

 

 

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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 quantum systems and the significant implications these technologies have for secure communication and cryptography.

 

Related links:

Episode 288: Quantum Cryptography with Or Sattath

WHIR: Reed–Solomon Proximity Testing with Super-Fast Verification

BB84: Quantum cryptography: Public key distribution and coin tossing

BBM92: Quantum Cryptography Without Bell's Theorem

Stanford Nanoscale Quantum Photonics Group Github

Stanford Nanoscale and Quantum Photonics Lab

Photonics: Practical & Optimized: A Talk by Jelena

Accelerator that fits on a chip work by Jelena

 

 

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Missing Link are a talent team built for the Web3 era, helping projects across the ecosystem connect with the right candidates at the right time.

Whether you're an established project or a startup searching for specialized talent, Missing Link can help. Visit their website at missing-link.io.

 

 

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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 better benchmarking could accelerate ZK adoption and potentially lead to ZK's own 'ChatGPT moment'

Related links:

zkSummit

The Zero-Knowledge Community Survey

NoirHack

Noir

ethProofs

Designing Optimistic Interoperability with Nomad

Trusted Setup Ceremonies Explored

Anna’s Post on Benchmarking

The path to secure and efficient zkVMs: How to track progress

Ben Fisch on Limiting Factors of Verifiable Compute

ZKarnage

Further reading:

Celo Espero ceremony

ZKVM Benchmarking

The same thing that happened to AI is Happening to ZK

 

 

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ZK is finally easy with Noir, the fastest-growing zero-knowledge programming language. Build privacy-preserving apps without any ZK experience.

Aztec Labs is running a 4 week program, Noir Hack, with $200K in funding and grants.

Sign up now at noirhack.com.

 

 

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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-scale, industrial-grade ZK proving and what that will unlock.

Related links:

ZKV

ZK Hack Kraków

Mina Snarketplace

Mina: What are SNARK workers and the Snarketplace

Gevulot

ZkCloud

EthCC Paris: Toghrul Maharramov - Multi-Verifiers as a Hedge Against Bridge Vulnerabilities

RISC Zero Bonsai

Polygon zkEVM

GitHub: Aztec Protocol Barretenberg

ZK11: SNARK proving ASICs - Justin Drake

 

 

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ZK is finally easy with Noir, the fastest-growing zero-knowledge programming language. Build privacy-preserving apps without any ZK experience. 

Aztec Labs is running a 4 week program, Noir Hack, with $200K in funding and grants. 

Sign up now at noirhack.com.

 

 

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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 ambitious vision for internet privacy, its flagship product Freedom, and how the company pivoted from a broad individual privacy mission to a more focused B2B approach.

They cover Austin’s journey after ZKS—including how he discovered Bitcoin, co-founded Blockstream, and navigated the challenges of building a business around open-source infrastructure. He also discusses a new project he's involved in, which ventures into a completely different field—material nanotechnology.

We encourage you to check out the first two episodes of the series here and here before diving into this one.

 

Related links:

Part 1: Back to the Future with Zero Knowledge

Part 2: Zero Knowledge Systems, Privacy and Security with Jonathan Wilkins

Zero Knowledge Enemy of the State Shift Article

Knowing Glances: Understanding Infrastructures of Surveillance

Further reading:

Zero Knowledge Systems Wikipedia

Blockstream Website

Wired Article: Zero-Knowledge: Nothing Personal

News Burst: Zero-Knowledge open sources Freedom

Zero-Knowledge Systems Introduces Security and Privacy Tool Suite

Interview: Austin Hill On Blockstream, Open Source And Privacy

 

 

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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 exploration of novel ZK use cases, which is something we love to cover - so we hope you enjoy it!

Related links:

ZK Email Website

ZKP2P with Brian & Richard

Modular Summit 3.0 Panel: ZK Applications

ZK12: Future of ZK Applications with Anna & Friends

ZK for web2 interop with zkLogin & ZK Email

ZK Email: Making Airdrops More Human

 

 

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Missing Link are a talent team built for the Web3 era, helping projects across the ecosystem connect with the right candidates at the right time.

Whether you're an established project or a startup searching for specialized talent, Missing Link can help. Visit their website at missing-link.io.

 

 

**If you like what we do:**

* Find all our links here! @ZeroKnowledge | Linktree

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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 to learn ZK and are trying to figure out how to approach the challenge.

Related links:

RareSkills Website

ZK HACK Website

ZK HACK Whiteboard Sessions

RareSkills ZK Book

Jeffrey Scholz on Medium

Jeffrey Scholz’s course on Udemy

Consensys Bootcamp in 2021

Encode Club

ZK Podcast Episode 309 - ZK Jargon Decoder with Nico Mohnblatt video

ZK HACK - Thaler Book Study Group Playlist on YouTube

The MoonMath Manual to zk-SNARKs by Least Authority

 

 

Applications for zkSummit13 are now open, spots are limited for this edition so apply soon (www.zksummit.com) if you want to join.

 

 

Missing Link are a talent team built for the Web3 era, helping projects across the ecosystem connect with the right candidates at the right time.

Whether you're an established project or a startup searching for specialized talent, Missing Link can help. Visit their website at missing-link.io.

**If you like what we do:**

* Find all our links here! @ZeroKnowledge | Linktree

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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 research lab before catching up on the work Jonathan has focused on since then.

Key concepts we see in the ZK community today were first pioneered by the Zero Knowledge Systems research team and we hope to invite more of these past members of the team in the future! 

Related links:

Podcast Episode: Back to the Future with Zero Knowledge

iSEC Partners

X.25 Networks

2600 Meetups

C++ Builder

Delphi

‘Zero-Knowledge: Nothing Personal’ - Wired

Handbook of Applied Cryptography by Alfred J. Menezes, Paul C. van Oorschot and Scott A. Vanstone

Ian Goldberg profile

Adam Schostack - Schostack + Associates

Adam Back Twitter

Austin Hill Twitter

Bitcointalk 

Tor Network

Freedom Network excerpt by ScienceDirect

 

 

 

 

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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 emerging ZK projects in the ecosystem.

Related links:

Zero-Knowledge Proofs: Its Applications on Solana

Episode 135 - Look into Solana

Solana projects mentioned: Backpack, Anza, Gido, Jupiter 

ZK projects mentioned: Phantom, Elusiv, Light Protocol, Dark Protocol 

Solana Token Extensions

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

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

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Read transcript