ZK Mesh: January 2025 Recap

Welcome to ZK Mesh, a monthly newsletter covering the latest in advanced privacy-enhancing cryptography, distributed protocol development, and zero-knowledge systems research.

ZK Mesh is produced by ZK Hack.

We bring you recent research, useful articles, videos, podcasts, tweets, tools, project updates, and events. Expect a new edition every month. Be sure to share and subscribe!

Research

• How to Prove False Statements: Practical Attacks on Fiat-Shamir | Dmitry Khovratovich, Ron D. Rothblum and Lev Soukhanov

• Twist and Shout: Faster Memory Checking Arguments Via One-hot Addressing and Increments | Srinath Setty and Justin Thaler

• MicroNova: Folding-based Arguments With Efficient (On-chain) Verification | Jiaxing Zhao, Srinath Setty and Weidong Cui

• Skyscraper: Fast Hashing on Big Primes | Clémence Bouvier, Lorenzo Grassi, Dmitry Khovratovich, Katharina Koschatko, Christian Rechberger, Fabian Schmid and Markus Schofnegger

• A Practical Distinguisher on the Full Skyscraper Permutation | Antoine Bak

• DewTwo: A Transparent PCS With Quasi-linear Prover, Logarithmic Verifier and 4.5KB Proofs From Falsifiable Assumptions | Benedikt Bünz, Tushar Mopuri, Alireza Shirzad and Sriram Sridhar

• Hash-Based Multi-Signatures for Post-Quantum Ethereum | Justin Drake, Dmitry Khovratovich, Mikhail Kudinov and Benedikt Wagner

• Morgana: A Laconic Circuit Builder | Lev Soukhanov and Yaroslav Rebenko

• Shielded CSV: Private and Efficient Client-Side Validation | Jonas Nick, Liam Eagen and Robin Linus

• ZKLoRA: Efficient Zero-Knowledge Proofs for LoRA Verification | Bidhan Roy, Peter Potash and Marcos Villagra

• KZH-Fold: Accountable Voting from Sublinear Accumulation | George Kadianakis, Arantxa Zapico, Hossein Hafezi and Benedikt Bünz

• How To Use Your Brain for Cryptography Without Trustworthy Machines | Wakaha Ogata, Toi Tomita, Kenta Takahashi and Masakatsu Nishigaki

• Forking the RANDAO: Manipulating Ethereum's Distributed Randomness Beacon | Ábel Nagy, János Tapolcai, István András Seres and Bence Ladóczki

• poqeth: Efficient, Post-quantum Signature Verification on Ethereum | Ruslan Kysil, István András Seres, Péter Kutas and Nándor Kelecsényi

• Extending Groth16 for Disjunctive Statements | Xudong Zhu, Xinxuan Zhang, Xuyang Song, Yi Deng, Yuanju Wei and Liuyu Yang

• VDORAM: Towards a Random Access Machine With Both Public Verifiability and Distributed Obliviousness | Huayi Qi, Minghui Xu, Xiaohua Jia and Xiuzhen Cheng

• Founding Zero-Knowledge Proofs of Training on Optimum Vicinity | Gefei Tan, Adrià Gascón, Sarah Meiklejohn, Mariana Raykova, Xiao Wang and Ning Luo

• CAPSS: A Framework for SNARK-Friendly Post-Quantum Signatures | Thibauld Feneuil and Matthieu Rivain

• SoK: Trusted Setups for Powers-of-tau Strings | Faxing Wang, Shaanan Cohney and Joseph Bonneau

• Verification-efficient Homomorphic Signatures for Verifiable Computation Over Data Streams | Gaspard Anthoine, Daniele Cozzo and Dario Fiore

• Qelect: Lattice-based Single Secret Leader Election Made Practical | Yunhao Wang and Fan Zhang

• Symmetric Perceptrons, Number Partitioning and Lattices | Neekon Vafa and Vinod Vaikuntanathan

• A Revision of CROSS Security: Proofs and Attacks for Multi-Round Fiat-Shamir Signatures | Michele Battagliola, Riccardo Longo, Federico Pintore, Edoardo Signorini and Giovanni Tognolini

• Zero-Knowledge Proofs of Quantumness | Duong Hieu Phan, Weiqiang Wen, Xingyu Yan and Jinwei Zheng

• Post-Quantum Threshold Ring Signature Applications From VOLE-in-the-Head | James Hsin-Yu Chiang, Ivan Damgård, William R. Duro, Sunniva Engan, Sebastian Kolby and Peter Scholl

Articles/Threads

• Breaking Down the Puzzles in ZK Hack V | Zellic

• ZK Hack V Online Recap | ZK Hack

• D/acc: One Year Later | Vitalik Buterin

• Benchmarking zkVMs on Metamath Proof Checking | Pi Squared

• Scaling Ethereum L1 and L2s In 2025 and Beyond | Vitalik Buterin

• Fraudslaying AI Agents with Zero-Knowledge Cryptography | Inference Labs

• Addressing Fake Website Attacks | Reclaim Protocol

• The Many Saints of Privacy: Nullifiers in o1js | o1Labs

• Why We Can't Build Perfectly Secure Multi-Party Applications (Yet) | PSE

• Private Search Algorithms | Dev (@valargragon)

• Mopro: Comparison of Circom Provers | PSE

• zkVM: A New Paradigm for Web3 Computing | Four Pillars

• Retrospective: Trusted Setups and P0tion Project | PSE

• ZODA, FRIDA, Danksharding, AVID and Dispersed Ledger | Espresso

• Self-Sovereign Identity & Programmable Cryptography: Challenges Ahead | PSE

• Why Verify? | EZKL

• Certificate Transparency Using NewtonPIR | PSE

• AI Counterparty Trust | Reclaim Protocol

• How ZkNoid Utilizes ZK Proofs To Ensure Fairness And Transparency in Online Gaming | Mina Protocol

• Why Zero-Knowledge Proofs Are Essential for AI Agents | Sindri

• What Based Rollups Need From the L1? | Taiko

• Indistinguishable Obfuscation — Wait, What? | Lauri Peltonen

• Building trust in Mina’s Delegation Processes | Mina Protocol

• Web2 Nullifiers using vOPRF | PSE

Videos/Podcasts

• ZK Whiteboard Sessions - S2M7: FRI and Proximity Proofs (Part.1) with Dan Boneh | ZK Hack

• ZK Whiteboard Sessions - S2M8: FRI and Proximity Proofs (Part.2) with Dan Boneh | ZK Hack

• a16z Hosts Isil Dillig: Formal Methods for Zero-Knowledge Systems | Veridise

Guides and Resources

• Groth16 | Alin Tomescu (@alinush407)

• Learn & Resources | Ethproofs

• A Survey of Interactive Verifiable Computing: Utilizing Randomness In Low-Degree Polynomials | Angold Wang

Vulnerabilities/Disclosures

• Thread About The Recent Paper Unveiling A Practical Attack on High-depth GKR Circuits | Ron Rothblum (@ronrothblum)

• Responsible Disclosure of an Exploit In Succinct's SP1 zkVM, Found In Partnership With 3MI Labs and Aligned, Which Arises From the Interaction of Two Distinct Security Vulnerabilities | Lambda Class

• SP1 Security Update: 1/27/25 | Succinct

• Hash Collision Bug in Iden3's Implementation of the Poseidon Hash Function | Marius van der Wijden (@vdWijden)

• Unique 0-click Deanonymization Attack Targeting Signal, Discord and Hundreds of Platforms | @hackermondev

Tools/Implementations

• Binius Docs | Irreducible

• A ZK-VM for the Brainfuck Language, Based on Stwo | Kakarot ZK-EVM

• Crescent Adds Privacy to Existing Credentials With Zero-knowledge | Microsoft

• ZKLoRA: Efficient Zero-Knowledge Proofs for LoRA Verification | Bagel

• Tiktok Privacy Innovation: Trustless Attestation Verification In Circom | Tiktok

Project Updates

• Introducing Proving - A Technique To Rapidly Verify and Trust AI Answers | Provably

• Binius Alpha Release & Ethereum State Proving Service | Irreducible

• Automatic Circuit Acceleration of Guest Programs | powdr labs

• Bringing Zero-Knowledge Proofs to Mobile: EZKL Goes Mobile | EZKL

• Aleo Specifications Now Publicly Available | Provable

• Introducing Quick Merkle Database (QMDB) | LayerZero

• An Advanced and Efficient EVM for Zero-Knowledge Applications | Horizon Labs

• EVM Trackooor: Tracking Anything and Everything on EVM Chains | Zellic

• ZKsync Trusted Execution Environment Proofs | ZKsync

• SP1 Turbo: The World’s Fastest zkVM Just Got Faster | Succinct

• A New ERA for ZK: Decentralizing the ZK Stack | Lagrange

• Introducing Hyleoof, a Trustless and Non-custodial zkAMM Demo | Hylé

• ZkCloud’s Prover and Validator Node Rewards | ZkCloud

• Introducing Twist and Shout: Next-generation Memory Checking for ZkVMs and More | a16z crypto

• Plonky2 Goldibear: Now Open Source and Ready for the Community | Telos Foundation

• Scaling the Nexus Ecosystem | Nexus

• Accelerating Proofs on Apple Devices | EZKL

• Open Source Privacy Pools for Starknet | Ekubo Protocol

• Cracking the Infinite Proving Layer | @0xNairolf x Lagrange

• Fabric to Accelerate Based Rollup Infrastructure & Connectivity | Ethereum Research

Events/Hackathons

• ETHDenver | Denver, US. February 23 - March 2, 2025

• ZK Hack Meetup #9 | Denver, US. February 24, 2025

• ZKProof 7 | Sofia, Bulgaria. March 23 - 25, 2025

• ZK Hack Meetup #10 | Sofia, Bulgaria. March 26, 2025

• Real World Crypto | Sofia, Bulgaria. March 26 - 28, 2025

• ETHGlobal Taipei | Taipei, Taiwan. April 4 - 6, 2025

• BUIDL Asia | Seoul, South Korea. April 15 - 16, 2025

• zkSummit13 | Toronto. May 12, 2025

• ETHGlobal Prague | Prague, Czech Republic. May 30 - June 1, 2025

• DappCon 25 | Berlin, Germany. June 16 - 18, 2025

• ZK Hack Berlin | Berlin, Germany. TBC…

• ETHCC | Cannes, France. June 30 - July 3, 2025

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