General Use Cases of Zero Knowledge
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💡Key Ideas:
I tend to divide Zero Knowledge space into 3 big buckets
- Privacy: transactions, identities and everything in between
- Scalability: rollups, offchain computation and everything in between
- Interoperability: bridges, coprocessors, and web2 - web3 links
Anonymous Payments: ZCash blockchain (2016), Tornado Cash mixer (2019).
Decentralized Identities: Semaphore, zkPassport, PrivadoID, zkMe ,etc.
Authentication: prevent data leaks! No storing of data. Also zkKYC
Verifiable computation: rollups!!! [2] All zk rollups like Starknet, Aztec, Taiko, Scroll, Polygon zkEVM, etc.
Voting: MACI [3], Shutter, Snapshot, etc.
🔗 Links:
[1] hWhat are Zero Knowledge Proofs by ethereum.org.
[2] What are ZK Rollups? by Chainlink
[3] What is MACI?
Overview of the Space
Because the space is always changing it's impossible to have a complete picture in real time of what's just even happening in the Ethereum-verse. Here are a few attempts that provide a high level overview of the space of space-segments:
ZK-Rollups Landscape Overview Report [July 2023]
The State of Zero-Knowledge Applications in Ethereum Part 1: Introduction by andyguzman.eth (Jan 2023) contains a brief explanation about what exactly are zero-knowledge apps, how does ZK innovation flows and a proposed way to categorize the different kinds of applications.
The State of Zero-Knowledge Applications in Ethereum Part 2: Privacy and Identity by andyguzman.eth (Apr 2023) provides an introduction to privacy and identity space and a list of many protocols and projects that addressed this issue (circa 2023).
The Future of Digital Identity by dcbuilder.eth (Dec 2023) presents a holistic overview of what the space of digital identity