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Back in October, Josh Swihart 🛡 explained why Zcash exists and why it started with Bitcoin: "Zero knowledge cryptography had been around for 30 years. Theoretical math. Academic. No practical application." "Satoshi wanted privacy for Bitcoin. Hal Finney was working on it. Scientists at Johns Hopkins, MIT, Technion figured...

34,701 views • 2 months ago •via X (Twitter)

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DROPS E35: Core DAO 🔶 - Bitcoin yield without giving up your Bitcoin Rich is one of the initial contributors to Core DAO, the leading Bitcoin scaling solution. He's also a long-time Zcash holder and early backer of Z Protocol , a new privacy chain built on Core's Satoshi Plus consensus. We talk Bitcoin yield, financial privacy, AI surveillance, and why the next big move in crypto might not be where most people are looking. We talk about: - How Core DAO lets you earn yield on Bitcoin by time-locking it - without ever giving up custody - Why borrowing against Bitcoin makes sense now - OG Bitcoiners rotating to Zcash - what "transition" actually means and whether it's bad for Bitcoin - Z Protocol as the DeFi layer for private money - Why AI has made financial surveillance trivial - and why that accelerates privacy adoption - How Agents are leaving full financial fingerprints - and why privacy needs to be default on at the chain level And much more... Timestamps: 0:00 - Introduction 2:05 - What does Rich Rines do? 3:00 - Financial Freedom 4:09 - Journey from Bitcoin to Zcash 6:40 - Zcash Philosophy 8:38 - Transition to Zcash 11:20 - Who is Rich Rines? 11:46 - Bitcoin as Pristine Collateral 14:28 - Criticisms of Borrowing Strategy 16:52 - Explaining CORE 18:58 - Bitcoin Yield Story 20:29 - Misconception regarding CORE 22:08 - Time Lock 23:34 - Risk of using CORE 24:37 - Strategies used by CORE 26:42 - What Bitcoin Holders Want? 28:46 - Bitcoin Yield 30:10 - CORE Alpha 32:44 - SatPay 34:19 - Power Grid Thesis 35:37 - Satoshi Plus 37:07 - What is Z? 38:12 - Benefits of long-term Zcash Holder 40:01 - Vertical Integration 43:12 - Privacy for Agents 44:41 - Faux Privacy 46:14 - Privacy vs Government 49:01 - Zcash’s Future 50:01 - Conclusion

MR SHIFT 🦁

105,467 views • 3 months ago

There have been whispers of Bitcoin hodlers swapping BTC for Zcash 🤔🔏 Why? Because some Bitcoiners want to be able to transact with more privacy. BUT Bitcoin can still have NATIVE privacy and scale. Eli Ben-Sasson | Starknet.io explains how ZK-proofs and OP_CAT hold the key 🗝️👇 We caught up with the 'Godfather of ZK' on Cointelegraph's Chain Reaction show this week for a deep dive into the promise of zero-knowledge technology for Bitcoin and beyond. Ben-Sasson, who co-authored the ZeroCash protocol whitepaper and helped found Zcash 🛡️, said that Bitcoin can still have native privacy and infinite scalability if developers can agree to reinstate OP_CAT, a Satoshi-era OP_Code that Bitcoin's creator disabled in 2010. It turns out that Zcash's resurgence in 2025 could be the catalyst for Bitcoin's privacy push. "I hope that one consequence of this would be that the Bitcoin community becomes more open to things like OP_CAT and OP_STARK so that it can have post-quantum security, best privacy, best scale and programmability for this beautiful hard asset that is Bitcoin." Ben-Sasson said. "The technology is ready. All you need is a soft fork adding nine lines of code that Satoshi actually introduced. It's called OP_CAT. It's very, very easy. If there's a will, there's a way. In this case, it's a very simple way to give all of that goodness to Bitcoin itself." You can watch our full conversation with Ben-Sasson in the 🧵👀📺

Gareth Jenkinson

32,003 views • 8 months ago

BITCOIN RAILS #69: ZERO-KNOWLEDGE PROOFS FOR POST-QUANTUM BITCOIN | with Benedikt Bünz 🔗 YOUTUBE: 🌿 SPOTIFY: While many Bitcoiners remain hopeful the network will embrace zero-knowledge proofs for protocol-level use cases, practical adoption has remained limited outside of BitVM and a handful of experimental proposals. Most of the world’s ZKP research has circled around Ethereum and other ecosystems, where significant resources have been dedicated to advancing these systems, particularly for scaling and privacy applications. One of the most notable contributors to this research is Benedikt Bünz ☕️ — professor of cryptography at NYU and collaborator of Dan Boneh, who together inarguably form one of the strongest blockchain-applied cryptography teams in the world. The pair recently announced they’ll be leading the new post-quantum cryptography unit localhost research — the first dedicated PQ research effort within a major Bitcoin development organization. With Benedikt leading the charge on the use of zero-knowledge proofs for post-quantum mitigation, the question emerges: will the post-quantum transition be the catalyst to finally bring zero-knowledge proofs to Bitcoin's core protocol? In more detail, Benedikt and I discuss: - Why ZKPs haven’t been widely adopted by the Bitcoin technical community — and why the threat of quantum computers may change that posture going forward - How ZKPs could be used for signature batching to address larger post-quantum signatures in Bitcoin’s post-quantum era - Why Bitcoiners will likely prioritize hash-based signatures as an initial post-quantum scheme — rather than more efficient but less proven alternatives (e.g., lattice-based) - How ZKPs have evolved over the last decade and may finally be ready for Bitcoin’s strict requirements around trust assumptions - Why Benedikt and Dan are teaming up with localhost research to create the first post-quantum cryptography unit within a major Bitcoin development organization + what they hope to accomplish This episode of Bitcoin Rails is brought to you by: LayerTwo Labs LayerTwo Labs — developing research, software, and technologies for scaling Bitcoin via the integration of Drivechains (BIP 300/301) Hashi on Sui — a primitive for executing Bitcoin DeFi transactions, without having to trust a federated bridge or other centralized entity BitBox BitBox — an open-source Bitcoin-only hardware wallet, with smooth UX and no compromises on security. Check out Bitbox [dot] swiss and use code BITCOINRAILS to get a discount TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 — Intro 00:22 — Benedikt's background 04:10 — How Benedikt got into Bitcoin and cryptography 07:42 — First ZK project: proving exchange solvency after Mt. Gox 16:01 — ZK proofs explained 27:43 — How security gets popular & ZK proofs in Bitcoin 35:49 — Other applications of ZK proofs for Bitcoin 40:15 — Why ZK proofs haven't been adopted in Bitcoin 50:46 — Why the Bitcoin post-quantum transition needs ZK proofs 01:07:00 — Cryptographic agility and why lattices win 01:18:00 — The size problem and how SNARKs solve it 01:33:57 — Proving a Bitcoin block in a laptop in 1.5 seconds 01:37:12 — Bitcoin as the primary quantum target 01:40:47 — ZK proofs for seed phrase recovery

Isabel Foxen Duke⚡️

19,872 views • 21 days ago

BITCOIN RAILS EPISODE #24: The History of Zero-Knowledge Proofs | with ZK “Godfather” Eli Ben Sasson In 2013, computer science professor Eli Ben-Sasson | Starknet.io presented his research on zero-knowledge proofs at a small Bitcoin conference outside of Standford University. The presentation immediately sparked interest from Bitcoin Core developer Greg Maxwell—leading Eli into over a decade of sustained work advancing ZK-based solutions for blockchain scalability and privacy. Today, zero-knowledge proofs are widely considered some of the most powerful and promising cryptographic primitives for scaling—with their full potential for Bitcoin simmering just beneath the surface of active development. This episode shares Eli’s early discussions of ZKPs for scaling, the use of proofs in privacy-enhancing technologies like Zcash, the explosion of ZKPs for Layer 2s on Ethereum… and his recent return to exploring ZKPs for Bitcoin. As always, you can view this episode on YouTube or Spotify via the linktree in my bio—YouTube link in comments as well. This episode is powered by Best In Slot—the leading API for Ordinals and BRC20 data aggregation and indexing. TIMESTAMPS: 00:51 Eli Ben-Sasson: Godfather of ZKPs 02:15 Revealing Proof Research to Bitcoiners 04:15 Meeting Greg Maxwell; Mike Hearn 06:10 ZCash: Bringing ZK Based Privacy for Crypto 07:05 SNARKs and STARKs Explained 08:10 Would Satoshi Approve of Bitcoin STARKs? 11:41 ZCash Privacy Versus Monero 13:45 When did the ZKP era begin on Ethereum? 16:34 What’s different about ZK STARKs? 18:40 Vitalik and STARKs on Ethereum with Starkware 21:10 Academics finally appreciating STARKs 23:18 Healthy competition in the ZK industry 24:20 What is Starknet? 25:50 What is an L2, in Eli’s view? 27:20 Focustree, an app on Starknet 30:00 How Eli arrived at Bitcoin Season 2 34:45 When did ZK look realistic for Bitcoin? 36:55 Eli first heard about OP_CAT 39:30 Why Lightning isn’t good enough 40:30 When did Starkware start focusing on OP_CAT? 44:20 Runes bridge to Starknet! 46:00 Expanding Starknet staking to BTC 48:20 Why is OP_CAT “barely enough” for Bitcoin L2s? 51:00 The real reason people oppose OP_CAT, per Eli 53:00 The risks of *not* changing Bitcoin 55:35 The weakness of Bitcoin’s lack of governance 01:00:15 We will need to softfork for quantum!

Isabel Foxen Duke⚡️

46,022 views • 1 year ago

My conversation with zooko🛡🦓🦓🦓 ⓩ, Nate Wilcox (Nate ⓩ🛡), and Sean Bowe (Sean Bowe) about the Zcash protocol. 0:00 - Episode preview 2:04 - Zooko Wilcox-O’Hearn 2:12 - Writing the first blog post on Bitcoin ever 8:29 - Bitcoin’s fundamental privacy flaw 11:49 - Unstoppable private money 14:28 - Will Zcash compete with Bitcoin as a store of value? 16:33 - How many people are using Zcash? 18:27 - Good security is good usability 22:19 - Social credit systems and ubiquitous surveillance 25:52 - Why Monero’s privacy tech can’t work 37:30 - Integrating ZKPs into other blockchains 42:00 - Privacy comes from money at rest, not from money in flight 49:51 - Why did the price of ZEC fall so drastically in the beginning? 53:58 - Zcash stablecoins? 57:59 - Quantum threats to Zcash 1:04:59 - Encrypted love notes in the blockchain 1:09:16 - Privacy enabled cultural trends 1:14:51 - Nate Wilcox 1:16:51 - Why do you need privacy if you have nothing to hide? 1:18:29 - A brief history of Zcash 1:24:55 - Why does Zcash have opt-in privacy? 1:29:08 - Does Zcash still rely on a trusted setup? 1:33:01 - Upgrading the Zcash protocol to Hybrid PoW/PoS 1:43:03 - A bug that almost killed Zcash 1:54:53 - Zcash’s funding model 2:11:21 - Why can’t privacy be added as an L2? 2:16:47 - Scaling Zcash and making it more interoperable 2:25:29 - Shielded Labs 2:26:51 - Nate’s vision for Zcash 2:30:05 - Sean Bowe 2:35:09 - Censorship resistance is a spectrum 2:37:43 - Will privacy coins be banned? 2:40:06 - Privacy and scalability 2:44:03 - Programmable money 2:45:48 - Summary of Sean’s contributions to the field of cryptography 2:57:33 - Zcash might get privacy against quantum adversaries for free 3:02:30 - Halo 3:07:50 - What Sean’s working on right now 3:14:11 - What has influenced Sean’s thinking in cryptography the most? 3:15:53 - Being a high school dropout working in crypto 3:17:25 - Zcash is just getting started

Arjun Khemani

29,363 views • 1 year ago

Did Epstein influence Bitcoin core development? Short answer: No. This is not how Bitcoin works. Here’s what happened: Epstein donated to MIT Media Lab…who in turn supported MIT Digital Currency Initiative…which in turn funded Bitcoin developers. These devs used to be funded by The Bitcoin Foundation (which I used to run as volunteer Executive Director) there are many devs and no dev or team had power or control over Bitcoin. Under MIT’s patronage the devs had the same deal they had with us at The Bitcoin Foundation: that they could work on the code and not have direction from the org. More importantly — how Bitcoin works is that *even if* a dev was compromised then the nodes and miners would still have to run that code to make it included in Bitcoin. So for example if I had somehow asked the devs paid by Bitcoin Foundation to “add 1000 coins for Bruce” 1) they wouldn’t have done this / it would have been counter to our agreement 2) no miners would run that code & no nodes would recognize it. It would be a laughing stock and completely rejected. Does this mean code dev is not an attack vector? No. It’s still a risk. Particularly with nation state style actors and very careful efforts to co-opt which are much more sophisticated than “give Bruce coins” or something. This is one reason I’m cautious of Bitcoin core funding - especially from actors who’ve had bad judgment in the past. I think we should be cautious of who does the dev and view it as an attack vector. Bitcoin code is transparent and has lots of eyes on it. So in this case especially there isn’t even a solid accusation, let alone evidence that MIT directed nefarious code changes. If that was an allegation the first question should be: well what code specifically did MIT direct and what proof is there and how was it harmful? I think claims around this would collapse. There’s obviously plenty to criticize about Epstein and MIT working with him — and when it comes to digital assets MIT’s work with Gensler and especially its work on CBDCs is much more suspect than the chance that malicious code was pushed through on Bitcoin. Be cautious but this is a nothing burger

Bruce Fenton

231,841 views • 6 months ago

A Norwegian student spent $26 on Bitcoin in 2009 and forgot the password. He cracked it 4 years later. His $26 was worth $886,000. – In 2009 Kristoffer Koch was a 22-year-old student in Norway writing his thesis on encryption and digital privacy. – He stumbled across Bitcoin while researching. Almost no one outside forums had heard of it. – He spent 150 Norwegian kroner about $26.60 and bought 5,000 Bitcoin at less than half a cent each. – Then he forgot about it entirely. – Four years passed. – In April 2013 Bitcoin was suddenly everywhere on the news. The price had exploded past $100. – He vaguely remembered buying some once. He could not find the password. – He spent weeks trying to crack it. – When he finally got in he stared at the screen for a long time. – His 5,000 Bitcoins were now worth $886,000. – He sold exactly one fifth of them 1,000 coins for around $177,000. – He used the money to buy an apartment in Toyen, one of Oslo's most sought-after neighbourhoods. – He kept the other 4,000 Bitcoin. – He told reporters: "It said I had 5,000 Bitcoin and I just thought oh wow." – He had written a university thesis on encryption. His reward for understanding it slightly earlier than everyone else was a free apartment. – The $26.60 he spent in 2009 would be worth over $450 million today. A Norwegian student forgot he owned Bitcoin. Cracked the password 4 years later, sold a fifth of it, and bought an apartment with the proceeds. He kept the rest.

Aisar

209,406 views • 3 months ago