Zero-Knowledge Proofs

IMO these zero-knowledge proofs are the most interesting stuff you can work on in the field of cryptography at the moment. I wrote a bit about them here <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cryptologie.net&#x2F;article&#x2F;507&#x2F;the-missing-explanation-of-zk-snarks-part-1&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cryptologie.net&#x2F;article&#x2F;507&#x2F;the-missing-explanat...</a> and in my book <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.manning.com&#x2F;books&#x2F;real-world-cryptography?a_aid=Realworldcrypto&amp;a_bid=ad500e09" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.manning.com&#x2F;books&#x2F;real-world-cryptography?a_aid=...</a><p>They’re going to change the world, not just for privacy, but for compression.

FWIW, this website is out of date; there&#x27;s been enormous improvements in zkp constructions and applications in the intervening 2 years.<p>(This is not a slight against the maintainers; the space is moving incredibly quickly, so it&#x27;s difficult to keep updating regularly.)

Another nice resource for understanding zk snarks that I found easily digestible was this paper that was shared on hn a few months ago[0]. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;arxiv.org&#x2F;abs&#x2F;1906.07221" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;arxiv.org&#x2F;abs&#x2F;1906.07221</a><p>[0]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=24815649" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=24815649</a>

best intro is still this paper: &quot;How to explain zero-knowledge Protocols to your Children&quot;;<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.researchgate.net&#x2F;publication&#x2F;221355016_How_to_Explain_Zero-Knowledge_Protocols_to_Your_Children" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.researchgate.net&#x2F;publication&#x2F;221355016_How_to_Ex...</a>

I think ZKPs will find most of their use in proving MPC protocols were correctly followed. In these protocols you often need everyone to do certain steps correctly to prevent cheating or deadlock. But sharing the information behind those steps reveals way too much data.<p>Often ZKP can be used to prove those steps were correctly followed.

The page seems a bit too heavily weighted towards SNARKs in particular and crypto<i>currency</i> applications in general. There&#x27;s no mention of ZKPPs, for instance.<p>Not all crypto is &quot;crypto&quot;.

ZK Snarks is where it&#x27;s at for crypto.<p>Every cryptography gives the cryptographer an immediate asymmetrical advantage, and that&#x27;s necessary given crypto&#x27;s adversaries.<p>Said cryptography advantage cannot be wasted by centralizing the social environment where people exchange the tokens<p>Crypto exchanges are the singular main point of failure and that is true for both centralized and de-centralized exchanges

ZKPs are a really exciting crypto primitive. They&#x27;re finally getting serious development for the cryptocurrency space, but I think we&#x27;ll see them used in all sorts of protocols over the next decade.<p>One possibility I&#x27;m excited about is users being able to perform computations locally without sending their data anywhere, and then providing the results to a company, government, etc with a proof that the results are faithful.

Great, one more thing to add to my never ending list of things I want to get good at.

Mina protocol is a cryptocurrency that just launched leveraging ZK Snarks. Will be interesting to see what happens with that technology.

the best ELI5 for a ZKP I&#x27;ve found follows<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;medium.com&#x2F;swlh&#x2F;a-zero-knowledge-proof-for-wheres-wally-930c21e55399" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;medium.com&#x2F;swlh&#x2F;a-zero-knowledge-proof-for-wheres-wa...</a>

I don’t understand why non-interactive zero-knowledge proofs are worth trusting (in the cryptocurrency context of ZK-SNARKs and friends).