Insights from the 2024 Zero-Knowledge Summit

Recently, the 11th ZK Summit was held in Athens, with about 500 attendees participating in the one-day event. The conference covered several topics including zero-knowledge hardware, SNARK performance, and decentralized proof networks.

Zero-Knowledge Hardware Progress

Hardware support has always been an important goal in the field of zero-knowledge proofs. The conference discussed the current state of development:

• Researchers have provided a comprehensive overview of zero-knowledge hardware, including companies that use general-purpose hardware and custom hardware, as well as enterprises operating decentralized proof networks. The hardware-optimized SNARK verification system combined with dedicated hardware is expected to achieve a 1000-fold performance improvement, which will have a significant impact on future versions of Ethereum.

• A co-founder of a company introduced the concept of simultaneously designing proof systems and hardware. Preliminary tests showed that the performance of the Groestl hash function outperforms Keccak in certain applications, a finding that could influence future system design.

Decentralized Proof Network

Industry insiders envision that large-scale proof generation in the future will be completed by a highly competitive decentralized professional prover market. The conference discussed several potential network design proposals:

• A company's upcoming proof-of-stake network has been introduced. The company believes that the design goals of the network should be, in order: minimal cost, maximum latency, and censorship resistance. They predict that an auction model is most likely to succeed, and in the future, it may resemble the current block building mechanisms.

• Researchers have proposed a new economic model for the proof-of-stake network, introducing new mechanisms for matching trades and proofs to address potential collusion issues in bilateral auctions.

• Other experts have discussed the proof market that supports multi-party computation, focusing particularly on how to achieve trustless interactions between small clients and large provers while protecting privacy.

Zero-Knowledge Proof Applications

The meeting also discussed various schemes for constructing zero-knowledge proofs based on the existing identity system:

• Use DKIM email signature verification for address ownership, applicable to scenarios such as anonymous remittances and reporting.

• Based on OpenID Connect and traditional Web2 identity interaction, enabling functions such as remittances to social media accounts.

• Use electronic passports to build anonymous credentials, allowing users to prove specific information without revealing their full identity.

These discussions reflect the rapid development of zero-knowledge proof technology in areas such as hardware, network design, and authentication, opening up broad prospects for future applications.