The ZK Everything Report

Key Insights

• Zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) and the resulting tech are well-suited to tackle challenges facing blockchains today.
• Though invented 40 years ago, advancements in software and hardware have enabled ZKPs to be used in Layer-2 (L2) scaling, privacy, identity, and other Web3 use cases.
• One of the hottest zero-knowledge (ZK) applications right now is the race to launch the first zkEVM, which will enable general-purpose smart contracts and the porting of dapps onto validity rollups (which use ZKPs).
• ZK provides salient infrastructure for decentralized identity management, where the user has self-sovereignty over all of their identity and reputation.
• Excessive venture investment has led to fragmentation in the ZK tech stack among various projects, potentially slowing down the total development of the space.

With the magnitude of distribution in decentralized systems, trust is hard to maintain between participants. Public blockchains found their place as a universal foundation for all functions because of their transparent nature, which was speculated to bode well for a new, equitable financial system. Quickly, we found that too much transparency leads to decreased privacy and user experiences, even outside financial products.