Host, Alice Liu, will welcome guests to the conference and present the program, introducing the upcoming topics and participants. Alice will also provide an overview of the conference objectives, the aim of which is to emphasize the importance of collaborative discussion in the ZK space.

Ventali Tan, Co-Founder of Lita, will address the future of ZK, discussing our collective challenges and potential breakthroughs, highlighting the importance of continued research and collaboration, as well as the role of ZK in shaping the next generation of secure, scalable, interoperable, and private decentralized systems.

Alice Liu will talk to Eli Ben-Sasson, Co-Founder & CEO of StarkWare, and the Co-Inventor of zkSTARK, FRI, and Zcash, about his recent introduction of Circle STARKs. The discussion will focus on the performance implications and potential applications, in addition to examining the technical and implementation distinctions from traditional STARKs. The goal is to provide clarity on when and why a project might choose one type of STARK over the other, or whether traditional STARKs will ultimately become obsolete.

This session by the ZKM team will dive into the technical intricacies of their zkVM, focusing specifically on:

Co-Host, Pavel Sinelnikov, will lead a discussion addressing the current state of zkVM benchmarking practices, the challenges associated with ensuring fair and reproducible results, and the importance of transparency and standardization. The panel will examine different approaches to benchmarking zkVMs, including the use of precompiles, proof systems, and the trade-offs between flexibility and performance. The objective is to establish a clearer understanding of what constitutes optimal benchmarking methods and to work towards a consensus on best practices across the industry.

Alice Liu will return to host a panel discussing the trade-offs between the high performance of custom circuits and the flexibility and ease of use offered by zkVMs. Topics will include the role of zkVMs in accelerating time-to-market for new projects, the potential for custom circuits to optimize performance in mature applications, and the future of ZK technology as it evolves to meet the needs of diverse use cases. This panel aims to provide insights into how developers can navigate the choice between custom circuits and zkVMs based on their project requirements.

This session by the Lita team will offer a comprehensive exploration of zkVM design, with a focus on four critical subtopics:

Alice Liu will lead a discussion exploring the growing belief that ZK could surpass blockchain in impact and significance. The panelists will dive into the reasons behind this sentiment, examining the unique capabilities of ZK and how these features could extend beyond blockchain to revolutionize other industries. The discussion will also address the broader implications of ZK’s potential dominance and what it means for the future of our digital lives.

Jeroen van de Graaf, Senior Cryptographer at ZKM and a university professor with over 40 years of experience in the field, will explore the design properties for secure and efficient asset transfer across blockchains, without the need for additional trust assumptions such as those implicit in traditional bridging mechanisms.

Vanishree Rao, Founder and CEO of Fermah, will give the closing keynote, reflecting on the preceding panel and the general ethos of the conference. Vanishree will further highlight the potential of ZK and how its unique capabilities could extend beyond blockchain to revolutionize other industries, and emphasize the factors needed to realize the full potential of the industry, such as the importance of collaboration, ongoing dialogue, and the need to balance healthy competition with cooperation.