Observations and Insights from Bangkok Devcon: The ZK World is Experiencing a 'Big Bang'

Original author: Haotian (X: @tme l0 211 )

These days I participated in the joint Proof Summit organized by @eigenlayer \altlayer, Provable initiated by @RiscZero, ZKHub initiated by @ProjectZKM and @GOATRollup, as well as ZK Accelerate and so on. There are many activities, it is impossible to participate in all of them. But all the events I attended were about ‘ZK’, and after going through it, I feel addicted to ZK, it’s really fascinating.

Dream back to the ICO moment: Onchain anything ——> Prove anything

I remember the bustling scene of ‘everything can be on the chain’ during the ICO in 2017, such as: medical case data on the chain, full-process traceability chain from agricultural products planting to the dining table, upstream and downstream transaction financing on the Supply Chain, and so on. Although later facts proved that not all scenarios can be realized on the chain, and not all scenarios need to be on the chain. However, the narrative paradigm of Onchain anything has achieved the prosperity of the Bull Market in 17.

Running through these several ZK-specific events, one has a sense of a grand narrative of ‘Prove anything’ being set off by ZK.

The true value of ZK lies in the separation of off-chain computation and on-chain verification, allowing off-chain computation to achieve maximum computational efficiency and minimizing the cost of on-chain storage and execution. ZK Tech serves as a “trusted bridge” connecting everything.

Looking back at the past two cycles, the story of “on-chain” is trending. Rollup layer 2 is just the tip of the iceberg for ZK to demonstrate its value. After the explosive growth of ZK, there will no longer be a boundary between on-chain and off-chain, and only the new paradigm of “verifiable computation” will exist in the future.

At the same time, Prove Anything’s innovative exploration is quietly igniting, covering applications such as verifiable computation games, identity verification, DeFi/RWA, shielded transactions, voting governance, AI model verification, internet of things device attestation, and enterprise-level Supply Chain privacy assurance, which involve off-chain and on-chain scenarios.

The AVS Economic Consensus System is important for ZK

At the Proof Summit, I saw many fresh projects, such as: @alt_layer is going to build a trap VITAL ZK proof system to provide ZK proof capability for OP-Rollup; @alignedlayer focuses on scalable ZK proof generation and explores effective integration with OP Stack; @OpacityNetwork explores data privacy and secure sharing infrastructure based on VDN, zkTLS, MPC, etc.; @lagrangedevProver Network aims to establish a dedicated proof service layer between L1 and L2 to provide a unified shared proof infrastructure for different ZK proofs.

I’ve previously analyzed Eigenlayer and its AVS service paradigm representing the future of Ethereum, if it was just a vision back then. At this conference, I received validation that Altlayer’s improvement for OP Fraud Proof needs to be based on AVS, and Lagrange’s unified proof service layer for Consensus depends on AVS.

The commercially available packaged output of ‘Secure Consensus’ provided by AVS will help ZK quickly build a network of middleware protocol services, connecting a series of rapidly emerging ZK infrastructure and existing pure on-chain VM environments.

No need to say more, everyone can feel that there are too many emerging ZK forces active in the upstream and downstream of the AVS active verification service system initiated by Eigenlayer, although it still looks very early now, but let the bullets fly for a while.

TEE verifiable execution environment is given wings by ZK

The TEE Salon event is scheduled to last all day, but I don’t have time to stay for the whole thing. Surprisingly, the event is being held at Google’s super cool office in Bangkok. I was excited to attend this event as a form of pilgrimage to one of the world’s top internet companies.

Google’s Confidential Computing cloud product line, Intel’s SGX, TDX technology, etc., are eager to find a suitable entry point in the new narrative of TEE. The logic is simple. Just look at the ambiguous relationship between Alibaba Cloud, Huawei Cloud, Tencent Cloud and blockchain all along, and it becomes clear.

In my opinion, ZK+TEE is the guardian of the verifiable computing era. ZK is responsible for computing proof and verifying information transmission, while TEE provides a trusted execution environment and data privacy.

For example, Aztec’s dark pool, Fabric’s VPU hardware innovation chip, and more and more projects are integrating ZK, TEE, and other MPC, FHE encryption algorithms to accelerate the arrival of a new verifiable computing paradigm. Although TEE still feels too traditional, it will definitely contribute to the popularity of ZK.

zkVM provides infrastructure for the popularization of ZK Tech

Arrived at the zkHUB event, ZKM, RiscZERO, Cysic, MINA, Goat Network, Succinct, and many other ZK projects are overwhelming. When I say overwhelming, it’s not about the concept of ‘too many’, but the impressive coverage of upstream and downstream solutions and the Depth.

Many people may have seen some innovations that the Risc-V Virtual Machine is doing in @VitalikButerin’s article. Here I see @ProjectZKM’s engineers explaining zkMIPS in the system, a general-purpose zkVM that simplifies the ZK development process. It reduces the time and complexity of developing custom ZK circuits and provides a standardized platform for ZK application development.

Different from the Risc-V processor architecture that leans more towards hardware, zkMIPS trap is a software-oriented, simplified instruction set that can greatly optimize the generation of scenes required for Zero-Knowledge Proof.

zkVM is very out of the circle in the modular narrative context. Many people know that zkVM has more prospects than zkEVM, and its core logic lies in the fact that the future ZK will definitely break away from the original pure on-chain connectivity paradigm.

Therefore, zkVM, which can connect all AltVMs, can make ETH, BTC, and other blockchains become a unified settlement layer in the entire chain environment, and can build a liquidity layer that is unified across technical architecture limitations. It is really important.

Believe that, in the EVM-Compatible narrative finale, the new zkVM release of the infrastructure that connects everything with verifiable computation will be a sustained hotspot for many years to come.

Above.

Finally, let’s conclude with a word from RiscZERO VP, who said that the Block chain we are in is transitioning from the “server era” represented by Ethereum and Solana to the brand new “Cloud Era”.

In the current environment of modular, chain abstraction, zkVM, etc., you must understand what this sentence is proclaiming and clamoring for.