Meet Alberto Garoffolo, head of Telos’ ZK Technology, whose partnership with IOHK promises to redefine blockchain scalability. In their recent White Paper, they unveiled the SNARKtor protocol, aiming to revolutionize zk-SNARKS technology. This partnership addresses the increasing demand for zk-SNARKS, critical for protecting user data, increasing scalability, and ensuring blockchain interoperability.
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Imagine: you carry out transactions through the chain, manage healthcare files or bid on auctions. Now imagine doing all this without revealing sensitive information like your salary or medical history. That’s the magic of zk-SNARKS – silent guardians of privacy in the blockchain realm.
But what sets SNARKtor apart? It’s all about decentralization and efficiency.
Unlike traditional methods, SNARKtor collects evidence from multiple transactions in one compact package. This turbocharges blockchain performance, reduces verification times and ushers in a new era of blockchain innovation and accessibility.
For a comprehensive insight, we had the privilege of speaking with the mastermind behind it all, Alberto Garoffolo, Telos’ head of ZK Technology, to uncover the intricacies of zk-SNARKs within the Telos ecosystem.
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What is the main goal of the partnership between Telos and IOHK, as outlined in their recent White Paper on Blockchain Scalability?
Given the ever-growing need for zk-SNARKS in the blockchain space, for example to protect user data, improve scalability, and enable interoperability, it is clear that current blockchain systems need a more scalable way to prove SNARKs to verify.
Based on this need, we worked together to design a fully decentralized protocol that can massively scale the verification of ZK-proofs in blockchains.
Can you explain in simple terms the practical applications of zk-SNARKs and how they impact blockchain technology?
Zero Knowledge plays a critical role in enabling use cases where protecting user data is fundamental in applications such as payroll, enterprise payments, voting, auctions, healthcare applications, and many others.
Looking ahead, the need for compliance with national regulations will become fundamental in decentralized applications and digital identity will play a central role in every transaction. Zero-knowledge proofs will play a crucial role in striking a balance between privacy and regulatory compliance.
Furthermore, the fusion of zero-knowledge principles with artificial intelligence offers enormous potential, allowing AI models to be deployed without the need for on-chain execution.
A last but not least application is the implementation of zkEVM rollups, which use zero-knowledge proofs to facilitate scalability by compressing transaction data while maintaining its validity.
What sets the SNARKtor protocol apart from previous approaches to zk-SNARK authentication, and why is it considered groundbreaking?
SNARKtor is a fully decentralized protocol that uses recursive proof composition to merge many proofs for different transactions into one unique proof. The transactions may be completely unrelated (e.g. some transactions may use ZK for protecting user data privacy, some for compliance purposes, and some may use ZK to validate a zk-rollup status update) and may even have different proof systems to use.
The resulting proof could be verified more efficiently in the chain with a constant verification time, regardless of the number of aggregated proofs.
“This not only improves the scalability and efficiency of a blockchain system, but also makes it more feasible for use cases that require low latency, eliminating the need for expensive trial packaging.”
Alberto Garoffolo, head of ZK technology at Telos
The protocol is designed to potentially adopt the level of decentralization of the underlying chain, encouraging an ecosystem of actors to collaborate across all protocol phases. The design also introduces a new high-speed gossip protocol that can be used by the network to further scale throughput.
How does the integration of zk-SNARKs via the SNARKtor protocol benefit developers and improve usability within the Telos ecosystem?
By integrating SNARKtor, the Telos ecosystem will unlock most real-world use cases that are not currently possible due to technology and cost limitations. This will bring direct benefits to developers and users, as it provides the ability to deploy secure and compliant decentralized applications at low transaction costs.
How does Telos plan to integrate zk-SNARKs into its ecosystem?
We plan to integrate zk-SNARKs in several ways. To illustrate, one approach involves integrating the SNARKtor protocol and zkVMs to facilitate the development of applications that protect users’ data.
In particular, developers will be able to use a common high-level language to write the logic that guarantees the privacy of users’ data, while the SNARKtor protocol will handle the evidence aggregation and submission process in a fully decentralized manner. Moreover, we integrate zkEVMs to improve the scalability of the Telos chain.
What are the specific challenges that zk-SNARK technology addresses in terms of scalability, privacy and interoperability within blockchain technology?
As mentioned earlier, zk-SNARKs will play a fundamental role in all these scenarios. For example, consider an application where a user must prove that he is older than a certain age. In traditional public ledgers, the data needed to satisfy an application’s logic must be publicly available on-chain.
In our example, without zk-SNARKs, the user would have to publicly share his digital identity in the chain, including, for example, his date of birth. However, by using zk-SNARKs the user no longer has to reveal the data because he can cryptographically prove statements about his private data and then share the proof, which is verified on-chain.
How do you expect the integration of zk-SNARKs via the SNARKtor protocol to impact the mainstream adoption of blockchain technology and its various applications?
Mass adoption of blockchain is currently hampered by the lack of tools that effectively protect users’ data privacy while ensuring compliance in a scalable, decentralized and robust manner. The integration of zk-SNARKs via the SNARKtor protocol offers a promising solution to these challenges.
“By leveraging zkVMs alongside the SNARKtor protocol, we have the potential to address these obstacles, potentially unlocking countless real-world examples.”
Alberto Garoffolo, head of ZK technology at Telos
These advances could significantly contribute to the mainstream adoption of blockchain technology by providing the necessary security and privacy guarantees for broader applications.