4/14/24
socrates lecturing students on cryptography, privacy, and technology in classical athens, painting by raphael, wide shot, computers --ar 2:1
I was in Athens the last few days for ZK Summit 11, the biannual conference covering the state of the art in Zero Knowledge cryptography research and products. I went in with maybe a 1st graders understanding of the space and left with probably a 2nd graders understanding of it. I simultaneously suspect this will become a very interesting primitive for developers (beginning in blockchain/crypto contexts and expanding outward) and also am very skeptical of how and when it will actually move from frontier research and into economically useful software.
This is largely a list of questions I have about Zero Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs), and my early guesses at answers. The answers will update as my understanding evolves and I hear from others, but I suspect the questions will always be important signage for where to spend time.
Let me know what main questions you have around Zero Knowledge cryptography, or if your answers differ from my own.
me at the parthenon