Check out the latest episode of Node Guardians to see our cofounder David Wong talk about ZK security and the future of ZK with Sam. In this episode, David discusses the different workflows that can be used for blockchain auditing, the importance of math in auditing, and the scope of work that blockchain auditors typically perform. He also talks about the challenges of working in different contexts, how vulnerabilities are rated, and the usefulness of formal verification.
This blog post looks at Fiat-Shamir from a practical security perspective: it explains why something that seems simple in theory can become surprisingly easy to get wrong. By using vulnerabilities found in real-world projects, we give developers and reviewers a better way to think about Fiat-Shamir when designing, implementing, and auditing proof systems.
An exploration of how an AI tried to work around a security feature to handle a theorem that was hard to prove.
The economics of security have changed. AI has made finding and exploiting bugs cheaper, including in cryptographic and zero-knowledge code, while validation and remediation remain slow. Here is our view of what happened, what comes next, and how teams should change the way they secure their stack to defend against AI-assisted attackers.
We're excited to share that our programming language, noname, now supports R1CS, making it easier to write zero-knowledge (ZK) circuits and deploy them on Ethereum using SnarkJS. This update introduces an alternative to the common Circom language, with a simple and intuitive syntax inspired by Rust and Golang. In this post, we illustrate how to deploy a noname-based Sudoku circuit on Ethereum, demonstrating core benefits like proving a solution's correctness without revealing it. Dive in to explore how noname could potentially unify the fragmented zkSNARK ecosystem and simplify your circuit writing process!
We're super excited to introduce noname 3.0, our zk programming language inspired by Rust and Golang, now achieving full feature parity with Circom. This update brings native hints, a standard library, debugging features, and a lot more to enhance developer experience. Dive into how hint functions work with an 'unsafe' keyword to balance innovation and security, explore our new stdlib modules, and see how the compiler pipeline visualizer can help you understand the compiling process. Plus, check out our next steps and how you can contribute to shaping noname's future.
We're excited to introduce the preview of noname 2.0, packed with features that make developing advanced ZK circuits easier than ever. This update includes flexible generic-sized arrays, seamless integration with folding schemes for IVC, and an interactive online playground to test and share code. We've also optimized R1CS constraint generation to boost performance. Plus, there are numerous community-driven enhancements and bug fixes that make the language more robust and user-friendly. Dive in to explore the specifics of our journey, learn from the contributions of our vibrant open-source community, and see how noname is evolving into a more versatile tool for developers.
Groth16 is still the gold standard for succinct SNARKs: 128-byte proofs, constant-size verification, and a decade of real-world deployment. But despite its ubiquity, almost nobody explains *why* it works the way it does. In this post, we build Groth16 from the ground up, starting from R1CS and QAPs, then layer in pairings, trusted setup parameters, and the separator tricks (α, β, γ, δ) that make the scheme sound. By the end, you should have an intuitive grasp of every term in the final verifier equation.
We're diving into the world of Bitcoin's UTXO model and how recent advancements like BitVM can overcome its limitations, allowing for more complex computations without changing Bitcoin's core. This blog post explores cutting-edge techniques like covenants, statefulness, and circuit models, showing how they enable intricate logic on Bitcoin. We'll break down how these innovations make trustless cross-chain transactions possible, and highlight the potential of optimistic protocols to optimize the on-chain footprint. If you're curious about the future of Bitcoin's capabilities, this is the deep dive you need!
Curious about diving into zero-knowledge (ZK) application development? Our blog post is here to guide you through the common security pitfalls and mindset shifts essential for tackling ZK programming. We reflect on our journey from the early days of Mina Protocol to the dynamic space today, filled with tools like SnarkyJS and newer approaches to split the prover and verifier roles effectively. Discover the errors to avoid, like under-constraining data and letting divisors slip through unchecked, and learn how a solid review and audit process can save your ZK applications from disastrous security issues. Dive in to get the insights you need to navigate the ZK landscape confidently!