Zk-SNARK is far from the only type of zero-knowledge proof used by cryptocurrencies. Privacy coins that use zk-SNARKs must take steps to ensure no single party has access to that private key. All that's needed is one message from the prover to the verifier.Īlthough zk-SNARKs don't have any glaring drawbacks, if someone has the private key used to set up the protocol, they'd be able to create false proofs and counterfeit funds. They shield sensitive information, it takes just milliseconds to verify them, and they don't require extended interaction between the parties involved. The primary benefits of zk-SNARKs are the privacy and efficiency they offer. These equations can be evaluated and solved without disclosing the information itself. To offer this, the blockchain network encodes some of its consensus rules in zk-SNARKs.ĭuring the transaction process, zk-SNARKs turn the information that needs to be proved into equations. Zk-SNARKs allow the sender of a transaction to prove all that without revealing any of the addresses or amounts involved. Specifically, the conditions are that the sender has the funds available and that they've provided the correct private key to show that the funds are theirs. With most types of cryptocurrency, a transaction is validated by the network checking that certain conditions have been met. It uses zk-SNARKs technology to enable private transactions. Unlike prior methods, it wouldn't require interaction between the prover and verifier outside of a single message.Ĭo-author Chiesa would go on to help found Zcash ( CRYPTO:ZEC), a privacy coin that launched in 2016. A 2012 paper by Nir Bitansky, Ran Canetti, Alessandro Chiesa, and Eran Tromer coined the term "zk-SNARK" to describe a new zero-knowledge protocol. As previously explained, a zero-knowledge proof is a method that allows one party to show only that they have a piece of information without revealing the information itself or any additional information.Įarly zero-knowledge protocols required the prover and verifier to send messages back and forth. Zk-SNARKs comes from the concept of the zero-knowledge proof, which was first introduced in a 1985 paper written by Shafi Goldwasser, Silvio Micali, and Charles Rackoff. zk-SNARKs can show that the sender has the amount of funds they want to transfer without making that information public. In cryptocurrency, zk-SNARKs are a way for transactions to be private and fully encrypted on the blockchain while still being validated using the network's consensus rules. Knowledge: Knowledge refers to the information possessed by the prover. Argument: Argument is the term used for these proofs because they don't quite fit the traditional definition of proofs, but they effectively serve the same purpose.Non-Interactive: The proof consists of a single message from the prover to the verifier.Succinct: The proof can be verified within a few milliseconds since the proof length is only a few hundred bytes at most.
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