Exploring the Benefits of Zero-Knowledge Proofs on the Blockchain.

Before we begin, I'd like to assert that I am not a ZKP expert yet; however, I have been researching ZKPs and their applications and have decided to share what I've learned with you. With that said, let's get started!

Did you know that some startups claim to de-anonymize Bitcoin and alt-currencies, this means that if someone or a group of people are motivated enough they can trace down your transactions on the blockchain to your real identity and that's a threat to one of blockchain's core promises which is privacy, what does that have to do with zkp? well, before we get into that, let's first understand what zkp is and how it works.

What is ZKP and how does it work?

ZKP which stands for zero-knowledge proof is a mathematical concept that enables a prover to prove that statement is true to a verifier without actually revealing any other information other than the statement is true.

Let's Imagine that I'm trying to prove to you that I can unlock your phone without showing you how I'll do it; you give me the phone, I unlock it, and give it back to you so you can verify that the phone is indeed unlocked without knowing how I did it. We can try this on multiple phones, and you can verify that for each one, I was able to unlock this phone without disclosing how I did it.

Another example would be if you're trying to decentralize Uber, that means a lot of user data has to be on-chain because computations like calculating the cost of each ride also have to be on-chain which also enables users to trust your platform right? but, if that's the case then that's a big threat to privacy on the blockchain. This will automatically prevent so many people from adopting your web3 uber, there has to be a way right? to fix this, a lot of people have been researching technologies that can help us solve these challenges and that led to technologies like zkRoll-Ups.

How does ZKP rollup works?

ZkRoll-Ups are layer two scaling solutions that tend to achieve scalability and privacy on the blockchain by compressing transactions performing computations of-chain and only posting a minimal summary of the transactions on-chain.

However, there have been some arguments around whether ZK Roll-Ups are ZKPs or not since some roll-up operators can see incoming transaction details and choose whether to process it or not, also the Merkle tree hash in some of these roll-ups are being revealed which means that if someone is skilled and motivated enough they can review the data in that particular tree.

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ZKP innovations

Some other Technologies are being developed to enable end users to apply ZKP on each transaction before sending it out to the blockchain or even roll-up operators, that way roll-up operators cannot see the data in a particular transaction which will limit the manipulation of transaction ordering.

An example of projects already implementing this is ZCash: According to Wikipedia, Zcash is a cryptocurrency aimed at using cryptography to provide enhanced privacy for its users compared to other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. Zcash is based on Bitcoin's codebase. It shares many similarities, such as a fixed total supply of 21 million units

ZKP Adoption.

There are drawbacks affecting the adoption of zero-knowledge proof and as some people will say "Selling ZKP now is like selling a car seat belt in the early 70s" people get that it can revolutionize the entire blockchain industry but they feel like it's still going to taker a long time and are not interested in doing the research and development involved.

Here are a few factors affecting the adoption of ZKP;

1. Complexity: This is very obvious, even at this point, I'm still finding a lot of things very confusing, there are not a lot of very relatable terms used in ZKP's learning materials out there and even the maths behind it is very complex.

2. Lack of awareness: Not a lot of people know about ZKP and, to be honest, not a lot of people care about it at the moment.

3. Lack of learning resources: There are very few resources on what ZKPs are, what can be done with them, and most importantly, how to build a zkApp.

4. Practical real-world use cases: there are so many use cases but very few
   projects apply them from concept to production. (e.g ZCASH)

Solutions

Here are some of the solutions that can fix the drawbacks affecting ZKP adoption;

1. Privacy by default: privacy should be embedded into the technology, tools, and methodology that enables us to build on the blockchain.

2. Educational content: we should create more Educational content around what ZKPs are, why, and how exactly people can start building zero-knowledge-powered applications(zkApps).

3. Developer's experience: better documentation should be written ZKP into our existing dApps and even tools that will enable us to build better and faster zkApps for production.

Building zkDapps can be quite confusing and stressful but not impossible, you don't need to know a lot about cryptography or how to program Circom circuits to get started, as long as you know the fundamentals of typescript you can start building your zkDapp today at Mina protocol. With the well-structured program (zkIgnite Cohort 1) for literally anyone interested in ZKP, whether you're a developer, marketer, designer, or anything else. Sign up quickly before registration closes.

Conclusion

I find zero-knowledge proof very fascinating and I'll be exploring everything around it and will also be sharing my knowledge with you guys as I learn so be sure to follow me to learn more about ZKPs.

Are you also new to this technology? do you have any question or thought on it? please drop in the comment section, if you're already familiar with this technology please also drop your thought or feedback in the comment section let's all learn together.

Until next time, bye!