Zero-knowledge proof for Bitcoin ─ 3 German researchers establish a non-profit organization | coindesk JAPAN | Coindesk Japan

Three German computer scientists have founded the ZeroSync Society in Switzerland, a non-profit organization to help Bitcoin scale using zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs, a cryptographic technique that exploded in rival Ethereum. established.

A zero-knowledge proof is one that uses cryptography to allow one party to prove to another party that something is true without revealing any information. Using zero-knowledge proofs to validate the Bitcoin blockchain, nodes can now sync almost instantly instead of taking hours (sometimes days) to download 500GB of data on the chain. become.

ZeroSync has already created a working prototype that allows users to track the state of the Bitcoin blockchain (who owns what now) without having to download the entire chain or trust a third party. and transaction history can be verified.

This prototype can verify Bitcoin consensus rules, but not transaction signatures. It’s also not ready for serious use yet, as it’s rudimentary and needs optimizations for speed and security, but the important thing is that it works.

ZeroSync co-founder Robin Linus told CoinDesk that it is “still in the prototype stage.” “But the vision is grand: if you download a 1MB proof, it’s as good as if you downloaded 500GB.”

Light clients and Simple Payment Verification (SPV) nodes have always existed on the Bitcoin blockchain. In fact, Satoshi Nakamoto touched on this concept in his original white paper. These are very important for small devices like smartphones that cannot download the entire blockchain.

“It is possible to validate transactions without running a full network node,” Satoshi wrote. “Validation is reliable as long as legitimate nodes control the network, but becomes more vulnerable when the network is overwhelmed by an attacker.”

ZeroSync would go a step further by verifying transactions via cryptographic proofs, rather than simply trusting legitimate nodes as Satoshi suggested.

“You don’t have to trust it, that’s the point,” Lynas said. “Proven by proof, that’s the point.”

A fully functional zero-knowledge proof can also be used to implement a wide range of applications besides primary node synchronization. ZeroSync has created developer toolkits for applications such as proof-of-reserve on exchanges and transaction history compression on Layer 2 protocols like Lightning Labs’ Taro.

Another co-founder, Lukas George, joined forces with Lynas last July to implement a full chainproof implementation for the Bitcoin blockchain. This is because George’s dissertation on implementing proofs of Bitcoin headers caught the attention of crypto investment firm Geometry Research. Then Tino Steffens joined and three co-founders with computer science backgrounds formed the ZeroSync Association.

Lynas lived in the beach town of Santa Teresa on the Nicoya Peninsula in Costa Rica. The remote town, with only one ATM shutting down at 10 p.m., drove Mr. Lynas insane and forced him to research alternative payment methods. Then he encountered Bitcoin and Ruben Somsen (Ruben Somsen) (who coined the term “ZeroSync”), and the rest, as they say, is history.

“From there, I learned more and more about cryptography,” Lynas said. “Then Ruben recommended Geometry Research. They gave me the opportunity to build a STARK proof of Bitcoin, which is how I met Lucas.”

｜Translation: coindesk JAPAN
｜Editing: Toshihiko Inoue
｜Image: Shutterstock
｜ Original: Newly Formed ZeroSync Association Brings Zero-Knowledge Proofs to Bitcoin