Happy new month!
January was a month of intense preparation — not only are we on the verge of our long-awaited testnet launch, but Eth Denver is also on the horizon and our ‘House of ZK’ hacker house is lining up to be something very special.
Let’s take a closer look at what’s been happening so far in 2024.
ZKM AMA WAS COMING
We were excited to announce our first ever AMA session which was held live on our Discord. Hosted by our wonderful Marketing Lead Cat and featuring several prominent ZKM team members including Ceo Kevin Liu, Dev Rel Lead Pavel Sinelnikov, and prominent Researcher Peyman Momeni, this introductory AMA was designed to give you a thorough overview of ZKM and allow you the opportunity to get answers to your most pressing questions.
The AMA was a big success, attracting a good sized audience of ZK enthusiasts and was sure to be the first of many. If you missed it then fear not — the recording can be found on our Youtube channel here: Discord AMA: Welcome to ZKM
EDUCATION EDUCATION EDUCATION
January was an exciting month for the ZKM Education Hub, witnessing not only the birth of the ZKM Blockchain Study Club, but also the release of Module 2 “What is a proof?” from our highly regarded Zero-Knowledge course ‘A High-Level Introduction to Zero Knowledge and Snarks’.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with this course, it is led by our Senior Cryptographer Jeroen van de Graaf PHD, and consists of an engaging combination of lectures, assignments and discussions that aim to build a solid foundation of Zero-Knowledge…knowledge.
The ZKM Blockchain Study Club was established because of an evident need for a subset of our community to elevate their general blockchain knowledge to a level that allows them to understand the deeper complexity of Zero-Knowledge and by extension understand the broader context of what we’re trying to do at ZKM.
The Study Club consists of a series of topics and lessons that are designed to sequentially transpire the ABC’s of Blockchain, covering everything from the underlying ideals and philosophies that initially fuelled its creation, to smart-contracts, NFT’s, virtual machines and everything in between.
Information for both the Study Club and the latest course module can be found in the ZKM Discord: https://discord.gg/4KYejuScdH
The Path to Decentralisation
ZKM CEO Kevin Liu posted some very interesting and important thoughts on how blockchain projects can achieve full decentralization in a realistic way. This release was made via the platform ‘Ethereum Magicians’ and is defined by 4 acute stages, inspired by Vitalik Buterin’s recent post about how Rollups should move to take off their training wheels.
The full post can be found here: https://ethereum-magicians.org/t/proposed-milestones-for-rollups-taking-off-training-wheels/11571/14?u=kevinliu
ZKM PRESENTS!
The last week of January was marked by a fabulous research presentation by ZKM Researcher Peyman Momeni. The presentation was a deep-dive into technical differentiation of mainstream cryptographic schemes and their modularity and was given live from the ZKM Discord.
If you couldn’t make the live presentation then you can find the recording at ‘youtube link’. Keep an eye out for our next presentation which will be held on 8th February in the ZKM Discord and given by ZKM Researcher Lucas Peixoto Fraga.
Introducing the ZKM Contributor Corner
After the successful expansion of our Early Contributor Program to Zealy, we launched ‘Contributor Corner’ in our Discord. Whether it’s a standout article or favourite infographic, Contributor Corner is a place for ZKM contributors to showcase their best contributions and receive direct feedback from the ZKM team.
January also marked the most successful month of Cohort 2 (so far) in terms of contribution volume, with close to 4000 task submissions.
ZKM at ETH DENVER
ZKM formally announced its upcoming ‘House of ZK’ hacker house, where you can expect deep-dive panels, workshop demos, and brilliant keynotes led by industry leaders. The rapidly increasing lineup of speakers is cause for excitement in itself and ZK Devs and enthusiasts are now welcome to enroll as official residents.
Confirmed speakers include: Jeroen van de Graaf (ZKM Senior Cryptographer), Daniel Lumi(Senior Product Manager of ZK Stack at ZkSync), Sandy Peng (Co-founder Scroll), Ming Guo(Chief Scientist at ZKM), Alex Pruden (Executive Director at Aleo) and many more.
Follow the link to register for the House of ZK: https://www.zkm.io/events/hacker-house
ZKM will also be sponsoring the official EthDenver Opening Party: Bufficorns Dreamland! You’re invited to a night you won’t forget — grab your badge, snag some swag, and meet fellow Bufficorns! Check out the official web-page for information about how to get involved: https://www.metis.foundation/events/bufficorns-dreamland
TESTNET IS COMING
We’re nearing closer to the launch of our long-awaited Testnet, which will give developers the opportunity to experiment with our Zero-Knowledge Virtual Machine for the first time.
Once it’s fully tried and tested, our zkVM will be integrated with Optimistic Rollups to give them additional (ZK) functionality, hence becoming ‘Hybrid Rollups’. The first OR to integrate will be Metis — a partnership that we’re extremely excited about and that’s looking to be the first of many.
Once this ‘Stage 1’ of our journey is complete, we’ll be moving swiftly on to adapt our zkVM to other (very powerful) use-cases. Watch this space!
Thanks for reading and we wish you a wonderful February. See you next month!
