ZKP News - 2024-07

Note: The following content was translated into English by AI.

2024.7.31

[Papers]

• Ding et al. design an efficient layered circuit for verifying SHA3-256 Merkle trees in GKR proving systems in “Efficient Layered Circuit for Verification of SHA3 Merkle Tree.” Paper

• Justin Thaler and co-authors optimize the sumcheck protocol in “More Optimizations to Sum-Check Proving,” dramatically reducing the cost tied to equality factors and combining well with other techniques over small prime fields. Paper

• Rosenberg et al. introduce Hekaton, a horizontally scalable distributed prover that aggregates proofs to handle $2^{35}$-gate circuits within an hour, in “Hekaton: Horizontally-Scalable zkSNARKs via Proof Aggregation.” (Code not yet released.) Paper

[Blogs]

• A Plonk study guide surfaced with simplified code samples for learners. Link

• Trail of Bits answered ten frequently asked questions about the latest ZKP developments in “Our crypto experts answer 10 key questions.” Link

• Ingonyama’s recent talk, “Cryptographic Fog of War,” is available as both a video and companion blog. Video | Blog

• ArkStream Capital published a long-form retrospective “Forty Years of Zero-Knowledge Proofs,” covering major milestones. Blog

[Open Source]

• gpu.cpp streamlines the GPU development workflow by providing a unified C++ abstraction that targets multiple hardware backends. Code

• Noir released an official RSA example library showcasing the language’s capabilities. Code

[Info]

• Antalpha Labs shared a July 28 zk roundup. Link

• A lively Twitter debate suggested that custom ZK systems may displace zkVMs to maximize application performance. 𝕏

• Vitalik noted renewed interest in Ajtai’s hash function for state trees, pointing back to lattice-based cryptography. 𝕏

• RISC Zero uploaded recordings from its latest hosted conference. Playlist

2024.7.24

[Papers]

• Bitansky et al. launch a new dot-product proof (DPP) framework in “Dot-Product Proofs and Their Applications.” A single dot-product query validates claims and witnesses, with deep dives into complexity and applications to approximation hardness and succinct arguments. Note: The paper intentionally uses “dot product” instead of “inner product” to avoid terminology clashes. Paper

• Chen et al. simplify designated-verifier zk-SNARK construction in “Designated-Verifier zk-SNARKs Made Easy,” addressing storage and security issues and demonstrating a Circom-based implementation. Paper

• Block et al. analyze the real-world security of non-interactive FRI in “On the Concrete Security of Non-interactive FRI,” showing deployed parameters can fall 21–63 bits short and providing guidance for 100-bit security targets. Paper

• Weger et al. compile “A Survey on Code-Based Cryptography,” cataloging advancements in code-based schemes for post-quantum public-key encryption and signatures. Note: It’s extensive—useful as a reference text. Paper

• Kuznetsov et al. evaluate Plonky2 for verifying cryptographic hashing on the NEAR blockchain in “Scalable Zero-Knowledge Proofs for Verifying Cryptographic Hashing in Blockchain Applications.” Note: No accompanying code release. Paper

[Blogs]

• Vitalik explains Circle-STARKs—StarkWare’s next-generation prover—in a new post (and an accompanying Chinese translation). Blog | Chinese translation

• “Pairings for the Rest of Us” documents the author’s journey to master pairing algorithms, constructing Tiny JubJub step by step and executing pairings. Part 1 | Part 2

• Irreducible shares progress on FRI-Binius in “Better, Faster, Smaller Binius.” Blog

• Strobe’s “Of Proofs and Purpose” reflects on the rapid evolution of proving systems versus slower-growing demand, searching for the drivers of wider adoption. Blog

• zkSecurity published its February audit report covering Renegade’s circuits and contracts on Arbitrum. Report

[Open Source]

• Aztec documented HONK, its latest proving system backing Noir. HONK combines UltraPlonk arithmetic (as in Halo2) with KZG, IPA, ZeroMorph, ProtoGalaxy, and more, with plans for LogUp, recursion, and GKR. Docs | Code

[Info]

• Antalpha Labs posted a July 21 zk recap. Link

• A STARK proof was verified on Bitcoin testnet using the OP_CAT instruction (unsupported on mainnet). Article

• Ingonyama wrapped up its CUDA crash course series—feel free to binge the full set. Video 1 | Video 2 | Video 3 | Video 4

[News]

• RISC Zero benchmarked zkVM 1.0 and reported an order-of-magnitude speedup over SP1 (Plonky3-based). Link

2024.7.17

[Papers]

• Alessandro Chiesa and collaborators released the book “Building Cryptographic Proofs from Hash Functions,” detailing SNARG fundamentals constructed from ideal hash functions, with STARK as a core case study. Book

• Su et al. propose “Jolt-b: recursion friendly Jolt with basefold commitment,” an optimized zkVM leveraging basefold commitments and Goldilocks field extensions to cut verification to $O(\log^2 N)$. Paper

[Blogs]

• A detailed report examines potential attacks on Binance’s proof-of-reserves scheme; Binance shared its mitigation plan. The write-up doubles as a PoR tutorial. Blog

• David from zkSecurity published “Interactive Arithmetization and Iterative Constraint Systems,” reframing ZKP systems under a unified constraint perspective. Blog

• The ZK Grants-supported zkKYC project documented its approach to implementing zkKYC on Noir. Blog

[Open Source]

• The first Rust implementation of Polymath (the prospective Groth16 successor unveiled last month) is now live. Code

• TaceoLabs shipped coCircom, enabling distrustful parties to co-create SNARKs via MPC while keeping inputs private; it’s fully compatible with snarkjs. Code

• A starter template integrating Hardhat with Circom was released for streamlined development. Code

[Info]

• ZKV issued the latest [State of ZK Q2 2024] report. Report | Past issues

• Antalpha Labs released a July 14 zk recap. Link

• The Ethereum Foundation announced the newest slate of ZK Grants recipients, highlighting cutting-edge work. List

[News]

• Polygon declared Plonky3 production-ready. News

• Nexus 2.0 shipped (the company Jens Groth joined), updating its frontend to Jolt and backend to HyperNova. News

2024.7.10

[Papers]

• Garg et al. present “Insta-Pok3r: Real-time Poker on Blockchain,” detailing an MPC-powered randomness service that coordinates keys without trusted third parties, preserving player privacy and enabling public verification. Paper

• Heiss et al. describe “Towards Credential-based Device Registration in DApps for DePINs with ZKPs,” a credential-based registration flow that hides sensitive device attributes while ensuring authenticity. Paper

• Rambaud et al. propose “Practical Non-interactive Multi-signatures, and a Multi-to-Aggregate Signatures Compiler,” introducing the dms scheme to streamline aggregation and non-interactive signatures for blockchain consensus. Paper

• Bendada et al. explore “RollupTheCrowd: Leveraging ZkRollups for a Scalable and Privacy-Preserving Reputation-based Crowdsourcing Platform,” using zkRollups to scale and protect user privacy. Paper

[Blogs]

• a16z gathered researchers for a roundtable on cutting-edge cryptography—topics spanned black hole paradoxes, the future of MPC/FHE/VDF, quantum impacts, and fair data exchange. Video

• Ingonyama shared introductory CUDA lessons for aspiring ZKP hardware developers. Video 1 | Video 2

• Vivek introduced the “Data Guilds” model, leveraging ZKPs to protect personal data for privacy-preserving advertising. Note: Could this inspire a “zkAds” niche? Blog

[Open Source]

• Constantine, a modular cryptography stack for blockchain and proving systems, debuted with support for BLS signatures, KZG commitments, and multiple languages (C, Go, Nim, Rust), backed by promising benchmarks. Release post | Code

• Vitalik published a CUDA-accelerated STARK prover using CuPy. Code

• “cicada” unveiled a homomorphic time-lock puzzle-based private voting protocol. Code

• Swoirenberg is a Swift library for creating and verifying Noir-based ZKPs with Barretenberg as the default backend. Code

[Info]

• Antalpha Labs posted a July 7 zk recap. Link

• Registration opened for ZK Hack Montréal (August 9–11), focused on hands-on tooling and applications. Link

[News]

• Israeli cryptographer Adi Shamir won the Wolf Prize in Mathematics (shared with Noga Alon). His inventions—RSA, secret sharing, the Fiat-Shamir transform—underpin blockchain security. Award

• StarkWare announced Stwo, a new prover achieving 500,000 hashes per second on a 4-core CPU—nearly 100× faster than the Stone prover currently in production. Link

2024.7.3

[Papers]

• Haboeck et al. (Polygon) explore practical ways to add zero-knowledge to STARKs in “A note on adding zero-knowledge to STARKs,” discussing FRI tweaks that factor the quotient polynomial into lower-degree components. Paper

• Dziembowski et al. showcase folding-based zkSNARKs for image manipulation in “VIMz: Verifiable Image Manipulation using Folding-based zkSNARKs,” supporting many transforms. Resizing a 4K (8 MP) image takes 974s and 10.3 GB of RAM on a high-end machine. Paper

• Ebrahimi et al. propose zRA, a transparent, non-interactive remote attestation protocol built with Circom, in “From Interaction to Independence: zkSNARKs for Transparent and Non-Interactive Remote Attestation.” Paper

• Monica et al. present “Trust Nobody: Privacy-Preserving Proofs for Edited Photos with Your Laptop,” validating edits like resize and crop on consumer hardware; a 30 MP image proof takes 41 minutes on an 8-core/4 GB laptop. Note: Verification time not specified but likely non-trivial. Paper

• Daniel Dore (Lita Foundation) introduces TaSSLE, a lookup argument replacing Lasso’s product argument with a logarithmic derivative approach (via logUp) in “TaSSLE: Lasso for the commitment-phobic,” enabling more flexible large-table access. Paper

• Quang Dao et al. improve sum-check SNARKs over binary tower fields in “Constraint-Packing and the Sum-Check Protocol over Binary Tower Fields,” optimizing zero-check PIOPs to slash precomputation costs. Paper

• Nyamsi et al. accelerate pairings on BW10-511 and BW14-351 curves in “Accelerating pairings on BW10 and BW14 Curves,” refining x-superoptimal pairing algorithms. Paper

• Gao et al. propose MissileProof, a succinct range proof for polynomial vector commitments with $O(1)$ proof, commit, and verification time (and proof generation cost $O(l \log l \cdot n \log n)$), in “A Succinct Range Proof for Polynomial-based Vector Commitment.” Paper

• Bagad et al. (Ingonyama) optimize the sum-check protocol over small characteristic fields, reducing extension-field operations, in “The Sum-Check Protocol over Fields of Small Characteristic.” Paper

• A Chinese translation of the classic Plonk paper is now available. Paper

[Blogs]

• “A Survey on zk IDs” catalogs projects like Sismo, Polygon ID, Holonym, Manta SBT, and Etonec. Blog

• “The ZK Endgame” visualizes the trajectory of ZK proof systems and benchmarks existing approaches. Blog

• zkSecurity’s blog on ZKP security tools covers the shift from theory to practice, highlighting major vendors and case studies. Blog

[Info]

• Antalpha Labs shared a June 30 zk roundup. Link

• zkHack (zkMesh) released its June 2024 zk recap. Link

• zkSummit will return to Lisbon on October 8, 2024, featuring cutting-edge talks in ZK and advanced cryptography; speaker submissions close August 25. Website