We talked about Zero Knowledge technology, its benefits and application with Edi Sinovčić at ETH Belgrade.
Edi is the founder and CEO of SpaceShard, a full-cycle R&D blockchain ZK company, an venture builder within the StaktNet ecosystem. Since 2017. Edi has been an Ethereum core contributor with variety of roles on leadership positions. Edi strongly believes in decentralization and with his team he is on a bold mission of exploring new blockchain galaxies and expanding the horizons of how blockchains can affect humanity.
Web Mind: For those who are not very familiar with it, can you tell us about Zero Knowledge technology? What are its advantages?
Edi Sinovčić: Let’s start from the beginning: the blockchain technology and what constitutes a blockchain. In its infrastructure, we have consensus, that is, the agreement among multiple people whether an action has occurred or not.
When it comes to Zero Knowledge, not everyone needs to have all information. We have a specific algorithm or mathematics that allows us to avoid the need for everyone to know everything and agree on it, but still prove something without sharing all the information.
The underlying mathematics enables us to simplify everything, and only one party can have the information.
Web Mind: What are the advantages of Zero Knowledge technology compared to blockchain and its principle that everything is known to everyone?
Edi Sinovčić: Zero Knowledge is essentially a component of blockchain. Blockchain as such has different ways of proving things – Proof of Work, Proof of Stake, etc.
There are different ways we can prove actions. For instance, there are ten of us in the room, and we all have different so-called validators. This implies that someone takes a certain piece of data and we check whether that action can be executed. For example, I send you 10 ETH or something and if I have it, I will validate that I can, you will validate that I can and everyone else will do the same. With that, we reached a consensus.
When it comes to Zero Knowledge, consensus and agreement among everyone are not necessary. Instead, I generate a proof that the action can be executed. And anyone, without having all the data to perform the verification, can verify that we have indeed reached an agreement.
Web Mind: Does it somehow shorten the verification processes?
Edi Sinovčić: It definitely simplifies and removes the “slowness” and “delays” that exist in consensus. Additionally, it improves the overall story.
One of the important things we get is privacy, because not everyone needs to know everything.
Web Mind: What are the possibilities of Zero Knowledge technology?
Edi Sinovčić: One of the possible applications is cloud computing 2.0. What does it mean? Currently, we have “double centering:” we have some data, like those used by Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and similar platforms. Essentially, we trust everything they serve us.
Now, in the next phase, with Zero Knowledge technology, we could prove at certain moments that something is indeed the case on those servers. This is called cloud computing 2.0.
Zero Knowledge technology allows us to know precisely where that data is located. This means that we no longer have to trust the data or the application, but we can verify it.
Web Mind: What is the future of Zero Knowledge technology?
Edi Sinovčić: The future of Zero Knowledge is diverse. On the one hand, we have an application on the blockchain because it is the first application and because there is a lot of capital and incentives in the blockchain direction. But, down the road, Zero Knowledge will be all around us. It simply changes the paradigm of the trust we must have in systems, removes it, so we can verify and not trust.
Web Mind: Does it go against the principles of decentralization?
Edi Sinovčić: No, fundamentally, because we prove something, but anyone else can verify it. We don’t trust that party to have done something, like we trust Instagram, Facebook and so on, but we can verify it.
Web Mind: So it’s possible to perform verification even though not everyone has access?
Edi Sinovčić: That’s right, that’s the basic idea. It is very difficult to prove something, but it is very easy to verify. Any of us can connect with our laptop and easily verify if something is true. On the other hand, the one who proves must have servers, big machines, etc.
Web Mind: Should Zero Knowledge technology be available to everyone, or still reserved for specific applications?
Edi Sinovčić: Everything depends on the use case. If users want very high security and very high decentralization, Zero Knowledge is for them. On the other hand, there are users for whom this is not a priority. Instead, user experience is what they’d prefer.
One of the applications is in finance, where highly secure data on the blockchain is required. However, in gaming, for example, security is the highest priority, and with this technology, we can bring the security level closer to what we have on public blockchains but at a much lower cost.
