The development of knowledgeless technology heats up amid a bear market
Zero-knowledge proof (ZK), or cryptographic methods that allow one party to prove to another that something is true without revealing sensitive underlying personal information, has become a hot topic of discussion among crypto veterans. At last week’s zkDay event as part of EthCC Paris, more than 2,000 attendees arrived at the small venue on Rue l’Aubrac to catch a glimpse of ZK’s newest project on display. P0x Labs, the developer behind the ZK Manta Network protocol, even announced a $25 million raise during the event.
Today, these technologies have played an important role in strengthening layer-2 solutions. By computing simple cryptographic proofs at layer-2, transactions can be completed almost instantaneously while records are sent back to the underlying blockchain as ephemeral tokens. At the same time, ZK tokens can enable private transactions that do not convey sensitive information to observers.
Speaking to Cointelegraph during zkDay, Tiancheng Xie, CTO of the ZK Polyhedra protocol, outlined another application of the emerging technology in the cross-chain bridge space. The Polyhedra team says the protocol has more than 50,000 daily active users and 800,000 monthly active users since the mainnet launched in April.
Cointelegraph: I think ZK bridge is quite unique among all the ZK companies we’ve looked at so far. Can you elaborate a bit on that?
Tiancheng Xie: We are building a [ZK] a bridge connecting more than 10 different layer-1 and layer-2 blockchains. Because we use zero-knowledge evidence to prove a country, our security is solely based on evidence security and source chain security. So in essence, if nothing is broken, then our security will not be broken.
CT: What are the advantages of building something like this over an interchain, like the Cosmos SDK?
TX: One big advantage is the cost. As you know that ZK can provide scalability to the blockchain, such as roll-up, and compressing user requests into a single transaction. For example, if two or three users are going to send messages to Ethereum. We can combine these messages into a single body of evidence. And gas costs remain the same. So if more users join, they can all get free tokens.
CT: Interchain is still a very new technology, and unfortunately, we’ve seen quite a few security incidents involving them. So how does the Polyhedra ZK bridge solve this problem?
TX: So zero [knowledge] Evidence cannot be broken because it has been proven true. Next is source chain security, which is very difficult to breach, because, for example, to break the source chain, you have to crack Ethereum first [the underlying chain], which is very difficult. I think the foundation is very solid compared to other chain protocols, where you can rely on a set of computer nodes. But this is not very secure because the volume of transactions can be very high, up to 200,000 or 300,000 per day, making it possible to disguise attacks on nodes.
CT: This sector is changing very quickly. Do you think the developer’s know-how is up to par with the ZK technology they’re trying to build?
TX: So when you look at AI, AI progress, we’re actually following the same path. Every year, we make better tools, and developers get better and better. So later, this tool will be easy to use for the web. So I think the gap has to be very small.
zkDay Paris Main Stage | Source: Cointelegraph
This interview has been edited from the original format for clarity.
