ZK Innovation: zkVerify at ZK Hack Montreal 2024
The Horizen Labs team had the opportunity to sponsor and participate in ZK Hack Montreal 2024, the premier hackathon for zero-knowledge (ZK) cryptography. From August 9th to 11th, we joined over 100 talented hackers, developers, and innovators in a three day sprint to develop real-world applications using the most advanced ZK platforms available. Our goal was to engage directly with the ZK community, showcase zkVerify's capabilities, and learn from the brightest minds in the industry.
Here’s a quick recap.
The ZK Hack Experience
ZK Hack brought together some of the biggest names in the ZK space to publish bounties for hackers, including RISC Zero, Gevulot, and Polygon Labs. As community sponsors of the event, zkVerify offered a $1,000 bounty for the best ZK application using the protocol to verify ZK proofs. Our team, consisting of BD and Product / Tech representatives, was on the ground to provide support and assistance to the hackers throughout the event.
The event began at Montreal's legendary Rialto Theatre, but a massive rainstorm and subsequent power outage on the first day led to an unexpected twist. Showcasing incredible adaptability, the ZK Hack team quickly relocated the entire hackathon to the historic and equally impressive St. James Theatre in Old Town Montreal for days two and three, where the hackathon continued without issues.
Innovative Projects on zkVerify
The projects submitted for our bounty were nothing short of impressive. Here's a quick look at the submissions:
- Ztips: A solution addressing the lack of reliable anonymous tipping verification mechanisms, using ZK for investigator and tipster anonymity.
- zGate: A novel approach to gated Telegram chats, leveraging ZK for flexible entry conditions without relying on trusted parties.
- ZK Safe Ownership Obfuscation: A project making Safe multisig wallet ownership completely private through ZK technology.
- Provable Multiple Party Delay Encryption (MDE): An efficient implementation of exponent range proof checks with applications in mempool privacy and censorship resistance for MEV.
These projects showcased the versatility and potential of ZK proofs in solving real-world problems and enhancing privacy in various applications.
Key Takeaways and Lessons Learned
Participating in ZK Hack was an invaluable experience for our team. We gained crucial insights into the needs of developers working with ZK technology, identified areas for improvement in our own documentation and tools, and made important connections with other players in the ZK ecosystem.
Some key learnings include:
- The importance of comprehensive and clear documentation for tools
- The need for more programmatic instructions for integrations
- The critical role of reliable infrastructure
Looking Ahead
The energy and innovation we witnessed at ZK Hack was inspiring and only strengthened our commitment to advancing ZK technology. We're already working on implementing the lessons learned, improving our developer experience, and exploring potential collaborations with the brilliant minds we met at the event.
You will no doubt be catching the zkVerify team at the next iteration of ZK Hack!
We would like to thank the entire ZK Hack team and all of the sponsors for putting up an unforgettable event and invite developers, researchers, and innovators to read through all the fantastic project submissions at this edition of ZK Hack.
Get started with zkVerify today!
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