This is the first edition of ZK-Roller-Coaster where we track and investigate the most exciting, meaningful, and crazy ZK-stuff of the prior two weeks.
What to expect? New and ongoing ZK research discussions and proposals, new projects, updates from the already existing and beloved projects, ZK-drama, some educational watchings and writings, opportunities for builders, and puzzles for the curious. Not all of these every time but all of these from time to time.
Let’s start with the first edition of ZK-Roller-Coaster! Hold on tight! 🎢
Spice of the week 🌶️
Apparently no one really knows how rollups actually work! Kelvin from Optimism gives a nice presentation on his rollup mental model, and asserts that ZK Rollups don’t exist! The horror! (But neither do optimistic rollups, according to him… they are all just rollups).
ZK and rollups research 🧙
ethresearch thread on “based” or “L1-sequenced” rollups (by Justin Drake). TLDR: “we highlight a special subset of rollups we call “based” or “L1-sequenced”. The sequencing of such rollups — based sequencing — is maximally simple and inherits L1 liveness and decentralisation. Moreover, based rollups are particularly economically aligned with their base L1.” Taiko supports the approach to be as decentralized as possible, fully depending on Ethereum for sequencer/proposer decentralization.
ethresearch proposal: Making Designated Verifier Signatures Compatible on Ethereum (by Shrey Jain and Enrico Bottazzi). Short summary in the Enrico’s thread.
ethresearch proposal of a new ZK-based Cross-Rollup-Communication Protocol (by Daniel Ivanov from LimeLabs).
A community-maintained collection of bugs, vulnerabilities, and exploits in apps using ZK crypto by 0xPARC community.
Alex Stokes published the draft of “systemization of knowledge”: what we mean when we talk about “sequencing”? That’s work in progress, feel free to contribute.
ZK and rollups updates 🎈
Espresso Systems published a paper (by Ben Fisch and Benedikt Bünz) presenting Espresso Sequencer, a tool for rollup decentralization.
Avail, the Polygon Data Availability solution, will be spun off completely from Polygon Labs.
Geometry presents Semacaulk, a gas-efficient zero-knowledge set membership protocol.
Succinct Labs introduced Telepathy, decentralized and secure zkSNARK interoperability protocol for Ethereum.
Sismo launched zkConnect = anon auth + selective data disclosure.
Porçu Quine (Filecoin Proofs team) introduced Lurk, a new LISP-based programming language for zk-SNARKs.
Arbitrum announced the launch of DAO governance.
Non-ZK industry highlights 🎡
Recap (by Tim Beiko) and recording of the last Ethereum Execution Layer Meeting (set the Shapella mainnet date (!!), covered every potential Cancun EIP so far, discussed local block building, etc.)
Flashbots Transparency Report.
Opportunities 🏄♀️
Apr 19: a deep dive into Sangria, a new folding scheme for Plonk with relaxed plonk constraints, a discord chat by Nico from Geometry.
Readings and watchings 🎞
General
Rollups Aren't Real: a long longread by Jon Charbonneau about Forced Transaction Inclusion Mechanisms, L2 Sequencer Decentralization and (Optionally) Consensus, Shared Sequencers & X-Chain Atomicity and MEV-Aware Design.
Deconstructing Rollups: what really defines the rollup? The community or a validating bridge? – an article by Patrick McCorry.
The future of Private, Flexible & Anonymous voting (by Raf Solari from Tally and O(1) Labs), a twitter space recording.
Danksharding part 1 with Yuval Domb, a lecture.
Rollups Through the Prism of Validating Bridges, slides from ETHDubai talk by Toghrul Maharramov from Scroll.
Optimal zkVM Design (by Max Gillett), a short talk.
Fancy mathematics, cryptography, and quantum physics
Constant Gas Function Dispatchers in the EVM, a longread by philogy.
TFHE (Fully Homomorphic Encryption) Deep Dive - Part I - Ciphertext types, a longread by Zama.
The current state of EVM languages, a research longread by jtriley.
ZKWasm: Expanding the Horizons of Privacy-Preserving Technologies with SuperNova, a longread by Wyatt Benno from ICME Labs.
An exponential improvement for diagonal Ramsey, thread-explanation by Timothy Gowers.
Unifying flavors of fault tolerance with the ZX calculus, a research paper.
Thank you for reading the first edition of ZK-Roller-Coaster. See you in two weeks! 🚵♀️