A 10-year-old research paper regarded as a ‘blueprint’ for the first practical application of zero-knowledge proofs (ZK-proofs) has received an award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the world’s largest technical organization.
“Genesis White Paper” — “ZeroCash: Decentralized Anonymous Payments on Bitcoin,” according to a presentation shared with Cointelegraph. — it was helpful It paved the way for ZK proofs in cryptocurrencies and has now received the “Test of Time” award at the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy.
“This award recognizes that this paper has had a broad and lasting impact on both research and practice in the fields of computer security and privacy,” Starkware said in a statement.
The paper, with 2,400 academic citations, did not change finance, but it paved the way for the project to spread using ZK proofs, the company added.
In addition, we were the first to commercialize encryption technology for cryptocurrency to enhance personal information protection.
The award goes to the authors of the publication: Alessandro Chiesa, Christina Garman, Matthew Green, Ian Miers, Eran Tromer, Madars Virza and Eli Ben-Sasson. Ben-Sasson founded StarkWare, a blockchain scaling company.
“This award reminds me, in retrospect, that this paper was the moment that put ZK on the blockchain research agenda,” said Ben-Sasson. How cryptocurrencies can help us all become the technology we all need.”
Related: Vitalik Buterin analyzes ‘Binius’ as a way to speed up zero-knowledge proofs.
This paper described how to build a private payment protocol called Zerocash that uses Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Arguments of Knowledge (zk-SNARKS) to hide the origin, destination, and number of transactions.
ZK Proof is now a commonly used technique in Ethereum layer 2 solutions to prove the validity of on-chain data without disclosing what that data consists of specifically.
Scalability can be increased by enabling techniques such as rollups and trustless verification of large amounts of off-chain data. Major Layer 2 networks currently using ZK proof include StarkNet, Linea, zkSync Era, Scroll, and Polygon.
On May 14, Cointelegraph reported that regulators were cracking down on privacy protocols. However, ZK-proofs can provide a solution by protecting your privacy while ensuring that funds are not transferred to sanctioned entities.
Ben-Sasson told Cointelegraph that privacy is a top priority. “To support this, we will be adding ZK functionality to prover Stwo, which will give developers a more scalable version of the Zerocash configuration on Starknet (and Ethereum).”
Last April, Big Four accounting firm Ernst & Young launched an Ethereum-based solution using ZK proofs to help private business clients facilitate complex contracts.
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