From privacy coins to glowing iris-scanning orbs, zero-knowledge proofs have become synonymous with crypto, scalability and privacy.
In the year By 2022, investors have committed more than $700 million in funding to companies pushing the envelope with zero-knowledge proofing. This year, ZK-evidence has become one of the biggest blockchain trends, with several major Ethereum scaling protocols hitting the mainnet.
ZK-proofs is a cryptographic protocol that allows one party to prove the truth of a statement to another party without sharing the content of the statement.
An often-cited example is proving you're old enough to drink without showing your ID or even telling the bartender your birthday.
Well, it seems that the anonymous creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, once found the technology very interesting.
Table of Contents
ToggleA better version of Bitcoin
In the year In August 2010, user “Red” asked on the online forum Bitcointalk if there was a way to improve the privacy of Bitcoin transactions.
“One of the things that bothers me about bitcoin is that the transaction history is completely public,” said the forum viewer. Another member piped in, suggesting that zero-knowledge proofs could be the solution.
“That's a very interesting topic,” Nakamoto replied.
“If a solution was found, a much better, simpler and more convenient implementation of Bitcoin would be possible.”
However, Nakamoto doesn't believe the technology could run into the problem of “double spending” — a fundamental flaw in all digital currency protocols where a bad actor can destroy the same digital tokens more than once.
“It is important to ensure that there are no double costs in all transactions, which requires global expertise,” Nakamoto said.
“It's hard to imagine how to apply zero-knowledge evidence in this case. We're trying to make sure something doesn't exist, which seems to require knowing everything and making sure it hasn't been added,” he argued.
Years later someone cracked the code
Little did Nakamoto know that the Cypherpunks would eventually find a way to solve the problem.
Privacy-focused cryptocurrency Zcash was launched in October 2016 by Electric Coin – an organization formed by computer scientists during Bitcoin's formative years. Zcash was developed by modifying the original source code of Bitcoin.
It is also the first time zero-knowledge authentication is used in true peer-to-peer cryptography, allowing users to hide or protect crypto wallet addresses when transferring or receiving funds.
The world finally knows that the famous whistleblower Edward Snowden is one of the main members of the Zcash celebration, six people to launch the project's private key in 2016. https://t.co/Lgag6bGA0n
— Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) April 28, 2022
Zakash founding scientist Eli Ben-Sasson today found Starkware, known for using zero-knowledge proofs to scale Ethereum.
Ben-Sasson told the magazine that Bitcoin Core developers' enthusiasm for ZK-proofs played a “crucial role” in the latter's co-founding of Starkware.
“The 2013 Bitcoin conference in San Jose marked my eureka moment.”
“We went so far as to declare my talk on ZK-Proofs as the highlight of the event because of the impact it will have on the future of blockchain,” said Mike Hearn, then-developer of Bitcoin and one of the early adopters of Bitcoin.
“That's where I discovered the transformative potential of the proofs of authenticity he developed,” Ben-Sasson said.
Fast forward to today, Bitcoin itself is now ready to enter the world of ZK-proofs.
Also read
Main characteristics
On… Why don't more law schools teach blockchain, DeFi and NFTs?
Main characteristics
Airdrops: Building Communities or Building Problems?
ZeroSync, a non-profit organization founded by three computer scientists (and sponsored by StarkWare), is developing the world's first ZK Light client for Bitcoin.
“Long term, we hope to bring mass adoption to Bitcoin using STARK proofs,” said ZeroSync founder Robin Linus.
Linus designed ZeroSync and is currently implementing a layer-2 protocol that allows Bitcoin to process 100 transactions per second, bringing privacy properties to Bitcoin.
“This could be a big step in bringing Bitcoin to the scale it needs.”
So what does Nakamoto think?
Ben Sasson: “It's clear from Satoshi's previous comments that he strongly supports the use of ZK-proofs for privacy.
Nakamoto was an unknown stickler. His public communications on Bitcointalk and his emails were reportedly done using the IP mask browser Tor. This is the main reason why the public IP address cannot be traced back to it.
Bitcoin's creator devoted a section to privacy in the Bitcoin white paper, suggesting that users keep their public keys anonymous, even though the public can see the transactions that took place, like a stock exchange, they don't know who was involved.
“It's clear that Satoshi is impressed with the privacy innovation that my peers and I have made at Zachash,” Ben-Sasson said.
Unfortunately, Nakamoto never approached the subject again before disappearing from public view on December 12, 2010 – the day he last posted on Bitcointalk.
Ben-Sassen, however, believes that if Nakamoto had remained active, he would probably have pushed to bring ZK-evidence to Bitcoin.
“Even though they recently gained access to Bitcoin through ZeroSync, I believe Satoshi was interested in making the necessary adjustments to integrate them further,” he said.
“After all, for Bitcoin to realize its vision as a global currency, the importance of scale cannot be ignored, especially given its current state of volatility.”
Subscribe
A very engaging read in Blockchain. It is given once a week.
Felix Ng
Felix Ng first started writing about the blockchain industry through the lens of a gambling industry journalist and editor in 2015. Since then, he has moved on to cover the blockchain space full-time. He is very interested in blockchain technology, an innovation aimed at solving real-world challenges.
