"Proving that something is true without revealing any details" — Zero-Knowledge Proofs

▰ What exactly are Zero-Knowledge Proofs?
Over 30 years ago, when three cryptographers proposed this concept, many people probably thought it was impossible or unbelievable. After all, when convincing others, we usually present facts and evidence. How can someone believe just by saying "I didn't cheat you"?

▰ But mathematics is so magical
For example, imagine you know a hidden Easter egg in a very obscure movie. You want to prove you've seen it without revealing what the Easter egg actually is.

You could tell your friend, "At the 45-minute mark, a certain character is holding an object with a special mark on it."

If your friend watches the movie and finds the mark, they know you've seen it. But you haven't revealed what the Easter egg is at all.

This is the core logic of zero-knowledge proofs: turning "verbal assurance" into "verification through details," solving the problem of proving something while keeping it secret.

▰ However, this technology also has a major drawback: generating proofs is very computationally intensive.

It's like when you used to spend 10 minutes solving a math problem in school, and then had to produce an absolutely error-free verification report. You'd need to break down each step of your solution into the smallest units and verify each one, which could multiply the workload dozens of times.

▰ That's when I noticed @cysic_xyz and thought their approach was very promising.

While most people use GPUs to generate zero-knowledge proofs—since GPUs excel at handling many repetitive operations simultaneously—there's a problem: GPUs are originally designed for gaming graphics and video rendering, not for this purpose.

@cysic_xyz aims to develop specialized chips for zero-knowledge proofs, with all designs focused on "efficient proof generation."

I think this is quite visionary. If they succeed, the cost of zero-knowledge proofs could drop significantly, making widespread adoption much easier.

In fact, zero-knowledge proofs are not far from us. In the future, they could be used to prevent data leaks when paying utility bills online, to sign important documents securely, or even to verify that a gaming account isn't cheating.

And @cysic_xyz's breakthroughs in hardware might be the key step to bringing this technology into everyday life.
#cysic