zkMesh: July 2024 recap

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

zkMesh 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!

** ZK Hack Montréal is happening on Aug 9 - 11**

Research

• VerITAS: Verifying Image Transformations at Scale by Trisha Datta, Binyi Chen and Dan Boneh

• More Optimizations to Sum-Check Proving by Quang Dao and Justin Thaler

• Hekaton: Horizontally-Scalable zkSNARKs via Proof Aggregation by Michael Rosenberg, Tushar Mopuri, Hossein Hafezi, Ian Miers and Pratyush Mishra

• LatticeFold: A Lattice-based Folding Scheme and its Applications to Succinct Proof Systems by Dan Boneh and Binyi Chen 

• TaSSLE: Lasso For The Commitment-phobic by Daniel Dore

• Jolt-b: Recursion Friendly Jolt With Basefold Commitment by Hang Su, Qi Yang, Zhenfei Zhang

• AVeCQ: Anonymous Verifiable Crowdsourcing with Worker Qualities by Vlasis Koutsos, Sankarshan Damle, Dimitrios Papadopoulos, Sujit Gujar and Dimitris Chatzopoulos

• A Crack in the Firmament: Restoring Soundness of the Orion Proof System and More by Thomas den Hollander and Daniel Slamanig

• On the Concrete Security of Non-interactive FRI by Alexander R. Block and Pratyush Ranjan Tiwari

• Designated-Verifier zk-SNARKs Made Easy by Chen Li and Fangguo Zhang

• Trust Nobody: Privacy-Preserving Proofs for Edited Photos with Your Laptop by Pierpaolo Della Monica, Ivan Visconti, Andrea Vitaletti and Marco Zecchini

• Insta-Pok3r: Real-time Poker on Blockchain by Sanjam Garg, Aniket Kate, Pratyay Mukherjee, Rohit Sinha and Sriram Sridhar

• Natively Compatible Super-Efficient Lookup Arguments and How to Apply Them by Matteo Campanelli, Dario Fiore and Rosario Gennaro

• Message Latency in Waku Relay with Rate Limiting Nullifiers by Alvaro Revuelta, Sergei Tikhomirov, Aaryamann Challani, Hanno Cornelius and Simon Pierre Vivier

• From Interaction to Independence: zkSNARKs for Transparent and Non-Interactive Remote Attestation by Shahriar Ebrahimi and Parisa Hassanizadeh

• Collaborative CP-NIZKs: Modular, Composable Proofs for Distributed Secrets by Mohammed Alghazwi, Tariq Bontekoe, Leon Visscher and Fatih Turkmen

Articles/Threads

• Thread on Custom vs Generic zkVMs | Vanishree Rao

• A Response Thread on Custom vs Generic zkVMs | Mo 

• Exploring Circle STARKs | Vitalik Buterin

• An Introduction to Verifiable Computation | Paul Gafni

• zkML: Tradeoffs in Accuracy vs. Proving Cost | NP Labs

• Zero-Knowledge Proofs In Gaming: Exploring the Impact of ZKPs on Game Development | Cathrine Williams

• An Introduction to Circle STARKs | LambdaClass

• Proof Composition Using Zero-Knowledge Virtual Machines: #RunawayZK | ICME

• Understanding GKR | Chainsafe

• Interactive Arithmetization and Iterative Constraint Systems | Cryptologie

• Data Guilds | @viv_bop, @yush_g & @decentlizard

• Custom Instruction Set Architecture – A Zero Knowledge Paradigm (Part 3) | Lita

• Sumcheck and Open-Binius | Suyash Bagad

• Of Proofs and Purpose | Strobe Labs

• A Simple Introduction to Zero-knowledge Proofs (ZKP) | Hylé

Videos/Podcasts

• Verifiable SQL, Reckle Trees and ZK Coprocessing with Lagrange Labs | Zero Knowledge Podcast 

• Frameworks for Programmable Privacy with Ying Tong and Bryan Gillespie | Zero Knowledge Podcast

• Jolt: An Open Source zkVM by a16z crypto Research and Engineering | Funding the Commons Berkeley

• The Intuition Behind The Sumcheck Protocol in 5 Minutes | David Wong

• ZK and Cryptography with Justin Thaler, Valeria Nikolaenko and Joseph Bonneau | a16z crypto

• Zero Knowledge Proofs and Applications | COSIC

• ZK Track at Modular Summit 3.0 | Celestia

Guides and Resources

• Schnorr Signatures: Everything You Wanted To Know, But Were Afraid To Ask! | Alin Tomescu

• Understanding Zero-Knowledge Proofs | Bhaskar Krishnamachari 

• Algebraic FFTs | rje.li 

• Pairings for the Rest of Us, Part 1: Finding G1 and G2 | Boyan Barakov

Vulnerabilities/Disclosures

• Audit of Renegade's Circuits and Smart Contracts | zkSecurity

Tools/Implementations

• A Simple Template To Generate ZK Proofs with Noir on Mobile Using React Native | @madztheo

• Tooling for Creating Collaborative SNARKs for Circom Circuits | Taceo

• Polymath: Groth16 Is Not The Limit | @imikushin

• Modern, Idiomatic, Well-documented Abstract Algebra For Rust | Warlock Labs

• Toy Model of Sharded Storage |  Zeropool 

Project Updates

• Polygon Labs x Irreducible: A Binius-based zkVM | Polygon 

• Gradual Dutch Auctions on Penumbra | Penumbra

• “What is a ZK Coprocessor?” Thread | Lagrange

• DIP-40: Integration of Anon Aadhaar for Ticket Discounts Targeting Indian Citizens | Anon Aadhaar

• StarkWare Sets New Proving Record | Starkware

• ZkBoost: Proof Supply Chain Abstraction | Gevulot

• Aztec Docs | Aztec 

• Introducing Vibe Check | Hylé

• Polygon Plonky3, the Next Generation of ZK Proving Systems, is Production Ready | Polygon

• Nexus 2.0: Jolt, HyperNova, and a New SDK | Nexus

• The Path to General Computation on Bitcoin | Starkware

• zkMIPS: A High-level Specification | ZKM

• Worldcoin Foundation Launches World Chain Developer Preview | Worldcoin

• Jolt July Roadmap Update | Sam Ragsdale

• Cairo v2.7.0 Is Coming! | Starknet

• Zooko And A New Focus For Zcash Resilience | Zcash

• Aptos Launches Keyless Wallets That Use ZK-proofs To Verify Identities | Aptos

• Introducing the Elastic Chain | zkSync

Events/Hackathons

• Science of Blockchain Conference 2024 | NYC, US. August 7 - 9 

• ZK Hack Montréal | Montréal, Canada. August 9 - 11 (APPLY NOW!)

• Frontiers | San Francisco, US. August 16 - 17

• Web3Summit 2024 | Berlin, Germany. August 19 - 21

• ETHWarsaw | Warsaw, Poland. September 5 - 8

• ETHGlobal Singapore | Singapore. September 20 - 22

• Builder Monastery ZuVillage | Ericeira, Portugal. September 16 - October 7

• zkSummit12 | Lisbon, Portugal. October 8 

• ETHGlobal San Francisco | San Francisco, US. October 18 - 20

• DevCon | Bangkok, Thailand. November 12 - 15

• ETHGlobal Bangkok | Bangkok, Thailand. November 15 - 17

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There you have it! Hope you liked this edition of zkMesh. Be sure to subscribe to get the next edition in your inbox.

Lastly, if you have something you think should be included in the next edition or suggestions for the format, tweet at us @__zkhack__!