It’s safe to say that February 2024 was the month that truly put ZKM on the map! After months of intense preparation and ardent building in relative stealth, we revealed several mouth-watering new developments in the build-up to our genesis launch of the House of ZK, which lit-up EthDenver!
We were extremely pleased to be able to introduce ‘Delphi: sharing assessments of cryptographic assumptions’, an advanced research initiative developed by Jeroen van de Graaf and Arjen K. Lenstra: https://eprint.iacr.org/2024/157
Almost all practical cryptographic protocols are based on computational or ad-hoc assumptions. Assessing the strengths of these assumptions is therefore a key factor in evaluating the risks of the systems using them. Discussions around these assumptions are often limited to taking place during coffee breaks of major crypto-conferences, or confined to isolated groups. Our goal is to make these discussions explicit and public, gathering the knowledge of hundreds of experts.
To this end we developed ‘Delphi’, an online questionnaire to document researchers' opinions and beliefs about the strengths of the most important assumptions. All responses received will be made accessible on our website, and we also intend to consolidate these responses and publish the results.
The current paper addresses classical cryptographic assumptions, whereas Delphi 2, a separate questionnaire dedicated to Ethereum, zkSNARKs, zk-friendly hash functions, and similar primitives, is currently under development. Since many of these primitives are relatively new and haven't been subject to the test of time, this joint effort to compare primitives should be of great help to our community.
Closely following our Delphi announcement came the release of a new Lightpaper, detailing a new trust-minimized multi-chain interoperability infrastructure called Entangled Rollup.
In this work, we implement an interoperability protocol by judiciously entangling the underlying primitives under standard security assumptions of zkRollups, leveraging our state-of-the-art recursive zkVM (zkMIPS).
The Entangled Rollup protocol is trustless, and a major step forward to addressing liquidity fragmentation, in addition to simplifying the user and developer experience as major adoption barriers of the multi-chain world.
You can find the Entangled Rollup Lightpaper here: https://whitepaper.zkm.io/entangled_rollup_light_paper.pdf
Next came the launch of our long-awaited zero-knowledge virtual machine (zkVM) ‘Alpha Testnet’!
Our primary aim is to establish Ethereum as the global settlement layer for secure, verifiable computing. Our zkVM combines Zero-Knowledge technology with MIPS processor architecture to create a unique verifiable computing solution, opening up tremendous possibilities for both new and existing applications to harness the many potential benefits of zero-knowledge proof technology.
We’re seeking collaboration and contributions from developers to build applications supported by our zkVM, which can be tested here: https://github.com/zkMIPS/zkm
If you’re participating in our Early Contributor Program, then you can find our Alpha Testnet bounties in the following locations:
Our Chief Scientist, Ming Guo, and Researchers Lucas Fraga & Peyman Momeni delivered an exclusive and highly interactive ‘Q&A style’ presentation about the ‘Entangled Rollup' - ZKM's groundbreaking new concept for aiding blockchain interoperability.
This was primarily hosted by our incredible Education Lead, Alice Liu, and also included a surprise appearance from our DevRel Lead, Pavel Sinelnikov, who did a wonderful job explaining the ins and outs of our Alpha Testnet.
We rounded off an incredible month with the hosting of the ‘House of ZK’, our first hacker house meetup during EthDenver where we held keynotes, lectures, panels, and interactive workshops that left every one of our residents wanting more!
The agenda was defined by 6 separately themed days, meticulously designed to stage some of the most prominent ZK-focused developers and entrepreneurs to share their best ideas and offer exclusive insights into the technology behind their respective projects.
The first day at House of ZK, Buidl & Chill, was a day dedicated to setting the tone for the week. While Denver welcomes thousands of buidlers, House of ZK provided a calm networking area off-site from the Buidlathon, giving our residents the ideal environment to warm up for a busy week.
The second day, "(re)Searching for ZK" Day, was when things really kicked off, featuring some of the most coveted industry experts who are leading the research behind the integration of zero-knowledge technologies into blockchain.
ZKM Chief Scientist, Ming Guo, starting things off by welcoming everybody to the House of ZK, before talks from Jeroen van de Graaf (ZKM Senior Cryptographer), Diogo Almeida (Researcher at Lightshift Capital), Pavel Sinelnikov (DevRel Lead at ZKM), Vipul Saini, (Co-Founder & CTO at Cypherock), Simon Judd (Software Developer at Ingonyama) and Aaron Malone (Founder at Collective Ventures), lit-up the house stage.
The day also featured an all-star research panel, including Jordy Baylina of Polygon zkEVM, Dylan Kawalec of Invo Technologies, Victor Munoz of Metis, and our very own Ming Guo, who combined brilliantly in their discussion of ‘Scalability Solutions and Zero-Knowledge Techniques in Blockchain’.
‘GM to all the VMs’ was a day of deep-dives into VM architectures, with the seriousness of the subject balanced by much smiling and banter!
The day kicked off with another panel of all-stars, some of them returning from the previous day, who discussed ‘ZKP Design Considerations for Alternative Use-Cases’. The panelists involved were Jordi Baylina (Cofounder and Tech Lead at Polygon zkEVM), ‘dcbuilder’ (Research Engineer at Worldcoin Foundation), Daniel Lumi (zkSync’s MatterLabs), Justin Zhang (Co-founder & CEO at Spin), and they were led by our Chief Scientist, Ming Guo.
The panel was followed by a sting of brilliant keynotes and demo’s by David Barreto (Developer Advocate at Starknet Foundation), Giuseppe De Luca (DevRel Lead at IoTeX), Sam Emmes (BD Director at Salus), Remi Gai (Founder at Inco), Stephen Duan (Developer Lead at ZKM), and Junda Liu (Brevis Co-founder), who covered everything from homomorphic encryption to co-processing and recursion in zkVM’s.
Moving into the latter half of the week, ‘Synchronous Scaling’ was another full day of panels, keynotes and demos, this time from projects and builders who are laser-focused on scaling blockchain technology using ZKPs.
The CMO of Layer 2 solution Metis, Jose Fabrega, opened the proceedings before Dominik Schmid (Project Manager at Polygon Miden), Francis Berwa (Head of U.S at zkPass), Elgios Cheung (Head of Ecosystem at zkLink), Qi Zhou (Founder/CEO at EthStorage), Jon Stephens (CTO at Veridise Inc), Max Sultakov (Co-founder & CEO at Arcane Finance), Arnav Pagidyala (Principal at HashKey), Cathie So (Chief Scientist at ORA), and the returning Ming Guo, Pavel Sinelnikov, and Dylan Kawalec, explored all manner of methods designed to scale and ‘bridgelessly’ connect blockchains.
Participants of ‘Synchronous Scaling’ day also had the pleasure of witnessing another star-studded discussion about ‘Truly Trustless Bridging with ZK’, which took place between the returning Ming Guo, Dominik Schmid, Daniel Lumi, and also featured Shubham Bhandari (Head of Ecosystem at Manta) and Phil Kelly (Head of Business Development at o1 Labs).
This one was moderated by the wonderful Evin Mcullen, Co-founder & CEO at Disco.xyz
The next day of the House of ZK was all about ZK Security and privacy, with another packed schedule of expert speakers. This one even contained a bonus fireside chat between Eric Vreeland (CSO at Polyhedra), Aetos Huo (Product Director at zkPass), and our Senior Cryptographer (Jeroen van de Graaf).
Pavel Sinelnikov welcomed our guests, before an array of keynotes and workshop demos from John Reynolds (Co-founder at ZPass, Aleo), Norbert Vadas (Protocol Researcher at Gevulot), Emily Lin & Arya Pourtabatabaie of Linea, Kostas Ferles (Chief Research Officer at Veridise), Sam Emmes (BD Director at Salus), Otto Mora (Business Dev Americas at Polygon ID), Jeffery Scholz (Founder of RareSkills), Jacob Makarsky & Pete Simpson (Contributors to Railgun), Nanak Nihal (Co-founder at Holonym Foundation), Anne-Grace Kleczewski (Co-Founder at Keom Protocol), Erlc Alston, University of Colorado
The panel discussion pitted ‘Privacy vs. Resilience: Building Trust in Decentralized Systems’ and featured specialist speakers from some of the most highly regarded projects in the ZK space.
Daniel Helm (Developer Relations Lead at Scroll), Jose Betancourt (Founder & CEO of Virtual Labs), Aetos Huo (Product Director at zkPass), and the returning Daniel Lumi of zkSync/MatterLabs all weighed in on what was a hugely educational discussion for our audience.
The penultimate day was ‘Builder Brigade’, which was packed with priceless insights from some of the brightest in the business, which included an extra-special panel discussion between some of our partners. Tommy (Investment Manager at Crypto.com Capital), Benson (Partner at OKX Ventures), James Wo (Founder & CEO at DFG), and York (Head of Investment at Generative Ventures), revealed their strategies and best practices for building a high performance team and was moderated by the returning Evin from Disco.xyz.
This day also saw a special welcome from our CEO, Kevin Liu, before Mona Tiesler (Head of Investment at Tokentus Investments), Lou Kerner (Crypto Oracle), and a panel featuring Eric Vreeland (CSO atPolyhedra), Ellis from Hexens and our DevRel Lead Pavel, kept the audience captivated with more secrets behind building a successful business, cultivating a community, and securing VC funding.
Metis & Frens Dev Day wrapped up an exhilarating week, where we hosted fellow econodes MetisL2 and P1X alongside Chainlink.
Overall, the debut of our House of ZK was a resounding success, and we’d like to express our deepest gratitude to all who were involved. The community vibes and general atmosphere were exactly what we were hoping for, and we’re very much looking forward to hosting our next House of ZK event. It won’t be far away so keep your eyes peeled!
Elsewhere at EthDenver our team were hard at work running the ZKM booth, giving the crowd the low-down on the string of our recent new developments.
People were flocking in to read our new ‘Entangled Rollup’ paper and learn exactly how we plan to connect the blockchain industry with this revolutionary concept.
Our Chief Scientist, Ming Guo, engaged in several deeply interesting discussions throughout EthDenver, including a panel at the Aleo Hacker House where he discussed what ‘Satoshi’ would have done if he’d had Zero-Knowledge technology at his disposal.
Pavel Sinelnikov (our DevRel Lead) was also in action all over Denver, including at Encode Clubs ‘The State of ZK’ panel, alongside Mina, Scroll, Linea and Taiko.
Meanwhile, our Senior Cryptographer Jeroen van de Graaf was busy spreading the word of ‘Delphi’ and sharing his 40+ years of accumulated cryptographic knowledge.
Our zkVM is all but ready for integration and is currently undergoing a series of performance optimisations. The first major integration will be with the Metis L2, with our zkVM enabling batches of transactions to be verified using zero-knowledge proofs. The proofs are posted back to Ethereum, which greatly reduces congestion and allows users to withdraw their funds much faster.
We’re also deeply in the process of integrating with some new partners - more will be revealed on this soon - and the team is already busy planning for our next ‘House of ZK’ stop. What’s more, you can look forward to some major developments from our Education Hub, which is getting some major updates and will soon feature on our website. Watch this space!
Look out for announcements about all of this on our ‘X’ page (@projectZKM) and in our Discord server: https://discord.com/invite/zkm
Meanwhile, there’s no rest after EthDenver and it’s back to the lab for our Research & Development team. We’ve done the research and we have the concept - now it’s time to put it into practice.
We hope you enjoyed reading about our most eventful month to date, and we'll see you next month for more exciting updates!
