Coming off the back of our hugely successful Brussels event during EthCC, House of ZK held ‘ZK Day’ during the Science of Blockchain Conference in New York City. Co-hosted by ZKM and Aleo, and co-organized by IC3, Stanford CBR, and Berkeley RDI, the event proved to be a remarkable convergence of researchers and industry leaders communally deliberating over the most recent advancements in ZK tech.
The day featured a series of technical workshops, engaging presentations, and thought-provoking debates, providing leading industry minds with a platform for sharing knowledge and networking.
Alice Liu, Education Lead at ZKM, opened the event with a warm welcome and an overview of what attendees could expect throughout the day, before Lucas Fraga, a senior researcher at ZKM, delivered a comprehensive presentation on zkMIPS architecture, a general purpose zkVM built by ZKM. He discussed its unique properties in enabling verifiable computations, highlighting its technical intricacies and potential applications. Lucas's deep dive into the architecture of one of the most advanced zkVM’s on the market provided attendees with valuable insights into this critical area of research.
Returning to the stage, Alice Liu showcased the innovative capabilities of the ZKM Proving Service. Her demonstration illustrated how the service enables the use of zkMIPS for verifiable computations with remarkable efficiency. Alice's practical approach and clear explanations helped attendees understand the real-world applications and benefits of the proving service, which is designed to remove the hardware restraints usually associated with zkVM’s.
Alex Pruden, Executive Director at Aleo Foundation, presented the unique benefits of Aleo in his session titled ‘Aleo Advantage’, emphasizing Aleo’s innovative approach to optimizing programmability, privacy, and scalability within a single blockchain. Alex's presentation was a masterclass in demonstrating how Aleo is setting new standards in the blockchain ecosystem.
Following Alex’s presentation came Dylan Kawalec, GOAT Network DevRel Lead, providing a technical presentation of his own on ‘GOAT's Layer 2 Bitcoin Roll-Up Solution with ZKM’. Dylan explored the innovative architecture and potential of Layer 2 solutions for Bitcoin, highlighting the critical role of ZKP’s for enabling native Bitcoin security, before Polygon Miden’s Senior Protocol Engineer, Paul-Henry Kajfasz, spun the discourse towards ZK for privacy with his workshop ‘Miden & the Future of Privacy-Preserving Protocols’. Paul-Henry provided a thorough examination of privacy-preserving technologies and their future applications in blockchain. His session offered a forward-looking perspective on the critical need for privacy in blockchain systems.
Continuing the privacy theme, Jimmy Ngo, DevRel Ambassador at Aleo Foundation, guided attendees through the process of building private decentralized applications on Aleo in his workshop titled ‘Deploying Private dApps on Aleo’. Jimmy’s practical insights and valuable tips made this session particularly beneficial for developers keen on building privacy-focused applications.
The keynote by Jeroen Van de Graaf, Senior Cryptographer at ZKM, focused on the ‘Entangled Ledger’ could be considered the highlight of the event. Jeroen’s exploration of this innovative concept shed light on new possibilities for blockchain interoperability using ZKM’s zkMIPS and Entangled Rollup design, before Pranav Gaddamadugu, VP of Protocol Development at Provable, brought the theme back to Aleo with ‘Leo and Proving Languages’. Pranav’s presentation detailed the advancements in proving languages essential for optimizing ZK-based systems and their applications. Both Jeroen’s and Pranav’s unique insights were highly informative and their vast experience in the industry was appreciated by all attendees.
Concluding the formal talks, we were honored to include a last-minute special presentation by Cecilia Zhang, ZK Engineer at Gwyneth (Taiko), on the ‘Design of Multi-Prover and RiscV-based zkVM Integration’. Cecilia’s session provided deep insights into multi-proof necessity for Ethereum and Layer 2s, along with challenges in cross-platform compilation and modularization between the prover host, guest binary, and zkVM runtime.
The event concluded with a wonderfully vibrant Happy Hour in the beautiful Panorama Room of the Graduate Hotel. This provided attendees with a perfect opportunity to unwind, enjoy hand-crafted cocktails, delectable appetizers, and network in a relaxed atmosphere overlooking the stunning Brooklyn Bridge.
We extend our heartfelt gratitude to all the speakers, participants, and co-organizers who made ZK Day at SBC '24 another resounding House of ZK success. Special thanks to our co-hosts and co--organizers: ZKM, AleoHQ, IC3, Stanford CBR, and Berkeley RDI, and our media partners DEXtools, UToday and CryptoEvents. We look forward to partnering in future events, and ZKM is proud to be a platinum sponsor of the main Science of Blockchain Conference event.
