September 24, 2025

Zerocoin to zk-creds: Modern ZK History with Ian Miers

1 hour 18 minutes

In this episode, Anna Rose and Nico Mohnblatt catch up with Ian Miers from the University of Maryland, starting with his work on seminal ZK blockchain research, Zerocoin and Zerocash and the creation of the first zk-focused blockchain project Zcash. They then explore the history of trusted setups, including the trusted setup bug discovery in Zcash, and subsequent improvements like Powers of Tau. Ian also discussed his work on ZEXE, a system that has inspired the formation of Aleo, and his more recent works: zk-creds for building flexible anonymous credentials from existing identity signals like passports, and zk-promises for supporting anonymous reputation, moderation, and callbacks in decentralized systems. They also touch on broader topics like post-quantum security considerations, sybil resistance, and the need for programmable privacy tools.

Related Links

Ian Miers: Academic profile and publications
Zerocoin: Anonymous Distributed E-Cash from Bitcoin
Pinocchio: Nearly Practical Verifiable Computation
Zerocash: Decentralized Anonymous Payments from Bitcoin
Zcash: Privacy-preserving cryptocurrency based on Zerocash protocol
Zexe: Enabling Decentralized Private Computation
Powers of Tau Ceremony: Zcash Foundation's multi-party computation for secure zk-SNARK parameters
Powers-of-Tau to the People: Decentralizing Setup Ceremonies
zk-creds: Flexible Anonymous Credentials from zkSNARKs and Existing Identity Infrastructure
zk-promises: Anonymous Moderation, Reputation, and Blocking from Anonymous Credentials with Callbacks
Decentralized Anonymous Credentials
Sonic: Zero-Knowledge SNARKs from Linear-Size Universal and Updatable Structured Reference Strings
Quadratic Span Programs and Succinct NIZKs without PCPs
DECO: Liberating Web Data Using Decentralized Oracles for TLS
SNARKs for C : Verifying Program Executions Succinctly and in Zero Knowledge
Scalable Zero Knowledge via Cycles of Elliptic Curves(BCTV14)
Sean Bowe on SNARKs, Trusted Setups & Elliptic Curve Cryptography

If you have a few minutes, we’d love to get to know you better and hear your ideas for the ZK Podcast. You can anonymously complete thefeedback form here.

ZK Whiteboard Sessions is an educational video series produced by ZK Hack. It is focused on the building blocks of zero knowledge technology. Find season 3 of the Whiteboard Sessions as well as previous seasonshere.

**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

**Support the show:**

* Patreon

* ETH - Donation address

* BTC - Donation address

* SOL - Donation address

Read transcript

...more

View all episodes

By Zero Knowledge Podcast

4.9

9393 ratings