[rhynlee]

I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed reading this since I read the post that it's responding to earlier this week. Found it really refreshing to see this discussion develop that way, and in plain english. I was indeed left wondering if there was a solution to the lazy user aspect for widespread adoption of crypto/web3, since it did seem to be a complete blocker for widespread practical adoption. Neat to learn about light clients and zk-SNARKs!

[magicjosh]

agreed the author has a great way of making complex topics more approachable. I wonder if there's a good/simple explanation of zkSnarks out there, I don't have any idea what they are despite seeing the term often.

[bidder33]

https://github.com/matter-labs/awesome-zero-knowledge-proofs

[magicjosh]

A list of resources, what a gift, thank you!

The "Zero-Knowledge Proofs Starter Pack" section is most up my alley. I read "Zero Knowledge Proofs: An illustrated primer by Matthew Green" about a year ago so am starting by re-reading this. https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2014/11/27/zero-kno...

[somebodythere]

https://medium.com/@imolfar/why-and-how-zk-snark-works-1-int... this resource helped me a lot, it is somewhat technical but should be accessible to someone reading HN

[magicjosh]

Thank you! The introduction section got me super excited in the application of zk-snarks.

Any other articles more like the intro section? The rest of the article lost me quickly, not beyond my ability but would take me 10x reading through and multiple days.

Re-posting the part I loved here in case others want to read:

Zero-knowledge proofs are advantageous in a myriad of application, including:

1) Proving statement on private data: Person A has more than X in his bank account In the last year, a bank did not transact with an entity Y Matching DNA without revealing full DNA One has a credit score higher than Z

2) Anonymous authorization: Proving that requester R has right to access web-site’s restricted area without revealing its identity (e.g., login, password) Prove that one is from the list of allowed countries/states without revealing from which one exactly Prove that one owns a monthly pass to a subway/metro without revealing card’s id

3) Anonymous payments: Payment with full detachment from any kind of identity [Ben+14] Paying taxes without revealing one’s earnings

4) Outsourcing computation: Outsource an expensive computation and validate that the result is correct without redoing the execution; it opens up a category of trustless computing Changing a blockchain model from everyone computes the same to one party computes and everyone verifies