This is the 6th edition of ZK-Roller-Coaster where we track and investigate the most exciting, meaningful, and crazy ZK-stuff of the prior two weeks.

And this is the first edition of ZK-Roller-Coaster produced by the Taiko community!

Special thanks to 6th edition contributors: umede, ex_scxr, msfew, anon212, yona.

Disclaimer: this is a collection of tweets, writings, videos, and other materials; these don’t express our opinion and may not necessarily be accurate. Please do (or continue) your own research.

Hold on tight! 🎢

Spice of the week 🌶️

• Jon Charbonneau did some research and ended up with the idea that “rollups are L1s.” Bruno from Matter Labs continued Jon’s thinking, backed his opinion on “what is a rollup and what isn’t” and shared an open letter to Jon. The community picked the idea further and suddenly realized that everything is social consensus. ERC20 is “just social consensus, any ERC20 community can just fork away” (acc. to Dankrad). He disagreed that “a rollup is defined by its nodes,” highlighting that “a smart contract rollup is defined by its bridge.” James Prestwich disagreed with Dankrad, claiming that “You, in fact, cannot build a SCRU without nodes. Users must run specialized software that evaluates the history and executes a state-transition function.”

ZK and rollup research 🧙

• ethresearch: stateless rollup (by OneTrueKirk).

• Dougie DeLuca discussed how distributed sequencer technology (DST) could help decentralize rollup sequencers.

• zeroknowledge.fm podcast: The State of ZK with Anna and Kobi (by Anna Rose and Kobi Gurkan).

• Daniel Kang described how ZKPs could help verify that AI systems are operating without revealing sensitive information.

• A short explainer of why we use Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) and Inverse Fast Fourier Transform (IFFT) in ZK-PLONK by Rishabh Gupta.

• How do we make sure that the data supplied to the circuit is correct? (a fun little zk explainer ft. cake).

ZK and rollup updates 🎈

• RISC Zero announced Continuations, its newest feature that unlocks the ability to run an EVM or WASM interpreter inside its zkVM.

• RISC Zero and Layer N partnered to develop the first multi-proof system combining ZKPs and fraud proofs.

• Optimism published its learnings and reflections on RetroPGF Round 2.

• Giza introduced Orion, a new Machine Learning ONNX Runtime built in Cairo.

• A blog post: How Polygon Miden Solves State Bloat by Polygon.

Non-ZK industry highlights and research 🎡

• Twitter thread explaining ethresearch post (by Mike Neuder and Justin Drake): past, present, and future for PBS (by Mike Neuder).

• Domothy published a piece answering some FAQs about the recently-proposed MEV burn mechanism.

• Haonan released an article arguing that the crypto industry faces a “Heavy Chandelier” problem.

• A research paper, “Time to Bribe: Measuring Block Construction Market,” a comprehensive analysis of the block builder and proposer landscape on Ethereum (by Toni Wahrstätter, Arthur Gervais, Kaihua Qin, and Liyi Zhou published).

• Gnosis announced Gnosis Pay launching, a visa card. However, the community argues “it's pretty easy to extract the ECDSA signature from the chip in cards and then use zkps or honestly just regular smart contracts to validate them on eth.”

• A research article: Intent-Based Architectures and Their Risks (by Quintus and Georgios Konstantopoulos from Paradigm).

Opportunities and events 🏄‍♀️

• Applications for the 4th cohort of the Ethereum Protocol Fellowship (EPF) are now OPEN. The EPF is a unique initiative designed to foster the next generation of Ethereum core contributors

• ZK Summer Contribution Program by PSE for students in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan!

Readings and watchings 🎞

General

• zkEVM Community Edition by PSE. Part 1: Introduction, Part 2: Components, Part 3: Logic and Structure.

• Recordings of the CryptoXAI.wtf event, exploring the fascinating intersection of crypto and AI alignment.

• iczc shared how they found a vulnerability in Polygon zkEVM.

• A recent Twitter space on ‘How will Zero-knowledge Proof Change Web3 Games?’

• emilianobonassi released a project, IYKYK, which allows KYC without doxxing yourself, enabling you to prove your identities to a third party without disclosing it.

• Introducing the Sovereign SDK Alpha Release, a toolkit for developers to easily launch their applications as zk-rollups.

• Twitter space: Espresso & Aztec: Decentralized Sequencers.

• Introducing Beacon Layer: An Enshrined Rollup Interlayer for Ethereum.

Fancy mathematics and cryptography

• zeroknowledge.fm podcast: Nova and Beyond with Srinath Setty.

• Research Day (by DBA) videos are live.

• Livestream (recording) CCS & HyperNova with Srinath - Folding Schemes FTW by PSE with Srinath Setty.

Puzzles for the curious 🧩

• Dan Robinson offers two puzzles about AMM pricing.

• Surya Bakshi is wondering if one has any news about Verkle Trees since Vitalik’s article in 2021?

Thank you for reading the 6th edition of ZK-Roller-Coaster. See you in two weeks! 🚵‍♀️

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