zkMesh: June 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 (APPLY TO JOIN US) **

Research

• Volatile and Persistent Memory for zkSNARKs via Algebraic Interactive Proofs by Alex Ozdemir, Evan Laufer and Dan Boneh

• The Sum-Check Protocol over Fields of Small Characteristic by Suyash Bagad, Yuval Domb and Justin Thaler

• ICICLE v2: Polynomial API for Coding ZK Provers to Run on Specialized Hardware by Karthik Inbasekar, Yuval Shekel and Michael Asa

• Exponent-VRFs and Their Applications by Dan Boneh, Iftach Haitner and Yehuda Lindell

• Polymath: Groth16 Is Not The Limit by Helger Lipmaa

• Optimizing and Implementing Fischlin's Transform for UC-Secure Zero-Knowledge by Yi-Hsiu Chen and Yehuda Lindell

• Constraint-Packing and the Sum-Check Protocol over Binary Tower Fields by Quang Dao and Justin Thaler

• Analyzing and Benchmarking ZK-Rollups by Stefanos Chaliasos, Itamar Reif, Adrià Torralba-Agell, Jens Ernstberger, Assimakis Kattis and Benjamin Livshits

• Loquat: A SNARK-Friendly Post-Quantum Signature Based on the Legendre PRF with Applications in Ring and Aggregate Signatures by Xinyu Zhang, Ron Steinfeld, Muhammed F. Esgin, Joseph K. Liu, Dongxi Liu and Sushmita Ruj

• On Cycles of Pairing-friendly Abelian Varieties by Maria Corte-Real Santos, Craig Costello and Michael Naehrig

• Epistle: Elastic Succinct Arguments for Plonk Constraint System by Shuangjun Zhang, Dongliang Cai, Yuan Li, Haibin Kan and Liang Zhang

• A New Security Evaluation Method Based on Resultant for Arithmetic-Oriented Algorithms by Hong-Sen Yang, Qun-Xiong Zheng, Jing Yang, Quan-feng Liu and Deng Tang

• Generalized Indifferentiable Sponge and its Application to Polygon Miden VM by Tomer Ashur and Amit Singh Bhati

• SmartZKCP: Towards Practical Data Exchange Marketplace Against Active Attacks by Xuanming Liu, Jiawen Zhang, Yinghao Wang, Xinpeng Yang and Xiaohu Yang

• Dual Polynomial Commitment Schemes and Applications to Commit-and-Prove SNARKs by Chaya Ganesh, Vineet Nair and Ashish Sharma

• On Knowledge-Soundness of Plonk in ROM from Falsifiable Assumptions by Helger Lipmaa, Roberto Parisella and Janno Siim

• Dishonest Majority Multi-Verifier Zero-Knowledge Proofs for Any Constant Fraction of Corrupted Verifiers by Daniel Escudero, Antigoni Polychroniadou, Yifan Song and Chenkai Weng

• zkVoting: Zero-knowledge Proof Based Coercion-resistant and E2E Verifiable e-voting System by Seongho Park, Jaekyoung Choi, Jihye Kim and Hyunok Oh

Articles/Threads

• Understanding Jolt: Clarifications and reflections | a16z Crypto

• Circle STARKs: Part I, Mersenne | zkSecurity

• The Need for High-Performance Zero Knowledge Proving | Irreducible

• All the proof aggregation solutions will use RISC-V zkVMs | Aligned Layer

• Can Blockchains and Zero-knowledge Help Humanity Survive? 47 Real-world Use Cases | Aztec

• Exploring zk-VM Design Trade-offs: A Zero Knowledge Paradigm (Part 2) | Lita

• The ZPrize 2023 Competition Has Wrapped Up | ZPrize

• Proximity Is What You Want: Low-Degree Testing for Reed-Solomon Codes | @BigSky_7

• FRIDA: Data-Availability Sampling from FRI | zkSecurity 

• Disarming Fiat-Shamir Footguns | Trail Of Bits

• ZK Hack Kraków: Winning Double with Gevulot & Risc0 | @andrzej1_1

• Building a Decentralized Privacy Preserving Order Book Exchange on Polygon Miden | Composability Labs

Videos/Podcasts

• Building Cryptographic Proofs from Hash Functions with Alessandro Chiesa and Eylon Yogev | Zero Knowledge Podcast

• ZK on Bitcoin with Alpen Labs | Zero Knowledge Podcast

• Proof Aggregation with Shumo and Yi from NEBRA | Zero Knowledge Podcast

• FRI-Binius: Polylogarithmic Proofs for Multilinears over Binary Towers (Ben Diamond) | zkStudyClub

• LatticeFold: Lattice Folding Schemes (Binyi Chen) | zkStudyClub

• Bain Capital Crypto Whiteboards | Bain Capital

• FFT's on the projective line and circle-STARKs | Ariel Gabizon

Guides and Resources

• Ronkathon: Learn Cryptography from First Principles | Pluto

• A Note on the G-FFT | Ulrich Haboeck

• A Note on Adding Zero-knowledge to STARKs | Ulrich Haboeck and Al Kindi

Vulnerabilities/Disclosures

• The State of Security Tools for ZKPs | zkSecurity

Tools/Implementations

• Storage Implementation Based on the Bonsai Storage | Starknet & Massa

• Gnark Plonky2 Verifier | QED

• Rust Implementation of the Agglayer | Polygon

• Sonobe: Experimental Folding Schemes Library | 0xPARC & PSE

Project Updates

• Exploring Mina’s Unique Architecture and zkApp Paradigm | Mina

• Why Mina's Berkeley Upgrade is a Giant Leap for Crypto | o1Labs 

• ZK Grants Round Announcement | Ethereum Foundation

• New Workflow That Enables Euro to USDC Onramping for Revolut Users | ZKP2P

• Privately Sharing Medical Data | Obscura Network

• Compressing the Gas: Scroll’s Curie Upgrade | Scroll  

• The ZK Endgame | Gevulot

• Cloaking Layer – A ZK Verification Infra for All Chains | zCloak

• Maya Protocol Litepaper | Maya Labs

• Renegade Testnet Is Live2 | Renegade

• vLayer Partners with Aztec for Trustless Onchain Data Proofs | vLayer & Aztec

• Inviting Teams to Advance the Decentralization of zkSync Era’s Prover | zkSync

• Lagrange Deploys First Production-Ready ZK Prover Network Powered by Coinbase, Kraken and OKX | Lagrange

• Reintroducing Mina: Building an Internet of (True) Things with its ‘Proof of Everything’ | Mina

• Cross-chain Bridges Via Backwards-compatible SNARKs  | Panther

• Road to Mainnet Updates | Aleo

• zkVM 1.0: Industry-Leading Performance Benchmarks | RISC Zero

• Aligned Testnet 3 | Aligned Layer

• Introducing: The Nexus 1.0 Machine | Nexus

• ZK Summit 11 Retrospective | Cursive

• Introducing the ZK Catalog | L2Beat

• What Is ZK Compression | ZK Compression

• ZK Coprocessor Euclid Testnet Phase 1 Recap | Lagrange

• How Aptos Keyless Accounts Work (zkSSO) | Aptos

• Devnet Is Coming | =nil; Foundation

Events/Hackathons

• EthCC | Brussels, Belgium. July 8 - 11

• Encryption Day | Brussels, Belgium. July 9

• ZK Hack Meetup #5 | Brussels, Belgium. July 9

• Modular Summit | Brussels, Belgium. July 11 - 13 

• ETHGlobal Brussels | Brussels, Belgium. July 12 - 14

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