In this week’s episode, Anna catches up in person with Guillermo, Tarun and Alex Evans for a look back at 2023. They revisit their state of mind back in Jan 2023 and share how the year unfolded and evolved for each of them as well as the ZK space as a whole. They survey the themes, applications and research topics that dominated ZK throughout this year and offer retrospective takes on how the ecosystem has changed.

In this week’s episode, host Anna Rose and cohost Nico Mohnblatt catch up with Ulrich Haböck, an applied cryptographer at Polygon Labs. This episode revolves around Ulrich’s journey into applied zero-knowledge cryptography, transitioning from an academic environment to being a full-time practitioner. They discuss his contributions to the field, including his many write-ups and manuscripts as well as his breakthrough research on Multivariate lookups with his work logUp. They also cover his work on logarithmic derivative lookups using GKR with Shahar Papini, as well as his innovative approaches to STARKs over finite fields that are not ‘NTT-friendly’. This episode offers a deep dive into the complexities and breakthroughs in applied cryptography.

In this week’s episode, Anna and cohost Brendan Farmer catch up with Jim Posen and Radi Cojbasic from Ulvetanna. They cover the origin story of Ulvetanna and their work on the ZK hardware/software intersection before moving on to discuss Binius, a new proving system they developed which is optimised for hardware. Binius is built on towers of binary fields and draws on recent breakthroughs on SNARKs. This work continues the trend towards the use of smaller fields and was inspired by the development of new lookup arguments, work done on multilinear provers and sum-check as well as the use of recursive composition in SNARKs.

This week Anna and cohost Kobi chat with both Kostas Kryptos from Mysten Labs, discussing the zkLogin project and Aayush Gupta representing the ZK Email + Email Wallet projects. They explore the use case of web2 onboarding into web3, through the lens of these two different projects which emerged independently but share a lot of the same characteristics.

They discuss the way this use case problem was first identified, the solution that each project came up with independently, the decisions that each project took and the future use cases they would enable.

This week, Anna catches up with Tarun Chitra and Sreeram Kannan during a spontaneous session recorded at Devconnect 2023 in Istanbul! They cover a variety of topics seen at the event, including zk toolkits, intents and Data Availability, shedding light on how these ideas are reshaping the framework of digital interaction and governance. Their chat covers the challenges and opportunities these technologies present, highlighting their significance in the current ecosystem. Later, they explore the complexities and nuances of EigenLayer, offering detailed insights into its functionalities, applications, and potential impact on the industry.

In this week’s episode, Anna takes a look back at the last 6 years of the Zero Knowledge Podcast, how it came to be and the journey the show has been on since that very first episode in 2017. Anna reviews the highs and lows of the show, touching on episodes which made a profound impact on her own journey in the ZK space, as well as episodes she wouldn’t rush to listen to again! Discover key show learnings, how the zkSummit formed and take a trip down memory lane in the 300th episode of Zero Knowledge Podcast.

In this week’s episode, Anna chats with Alex Gluchowski, CEO of Matter Labs & co-creator of the zkSync network. They catch up on the zkSync project since it launched in Feb 2023. They dive into recent initiatives like the ZK Stack framework, Hyperchains, and the ZK Credo mission statement. They also explore the upcoming Boojum proof system upgrade planned for zkSync Era and discuss the future of the zkSync project as a whole.

In this week’s episode Anna Rose chats with Brandon Kase, CTO, and Steve Pack, Head of Product at O(1)Labs, focusing on the Mina Protocol. The discussion covers their journeys leading to their work on the project, developments in the Mina Protocol since the last appearance on ZK Podcast, and insights into the zkApps building environment. They delve into the technical aspects of o1js and the underlying philosophy that drives its design. The episode wraps with a forward-looking perspective on the potential applications of zero-knowledge proofs as the industry shifts from a research-centric to a builder-centric approach.

In this week’s episode, Anna and Nico interview Or Sattath, Assistant Professor at the Ben-Gurion University in the Computer Science department. This is the 2nd episode with Or on this show, continuing the conversation around Quantum Cryptography. This time, he describes how we can transition from a pre-quantum to a post-quantum environment, looking at existing systems like Bitcoin and Ethereum. He covers why the methods used in the transition will be important, techniques on how this could be executed and the challenges in designing these techniques and the complications that can arise. Finally, they go on to discuss Quantum Money and recent works in this area.

In this week’s episode, host Anna Rose and co host Nico Mohnblatt catch up with Brian Retford and Jeremy Bruestle from RISC Zero. Together they delve into the current status of the project, breaking down the components of the stack, from the innovative RISC Zero zkVM leveraging the RISC-V instruction set architecture to the Bonsai proving service and the intriguing Type Zero zkEVM, Zeth. They also touch on their design methodology, how the system components integrate and future developments for RISC Zero.

In this week’s episode, Anna Rose is joined by Nigel Smart, Professor at KU Leuven and Chief Academic Officer at Zama to discuss the advancements in MPC over recent years. Nigel unpacks core components of MPC systems, including garbled circuits, secret sharing, and FHE. They discuss both systems-level applications like DKGs and Threshold Signature Schemes and actual real-world deployments. Throughout the episode, they also discuss how MPC and ZK differ, but how they can be used together to enhance each other’s capabilities.