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We made a bit of history at BTC Prague. The first bitcoin payments using zero-knowledge proofs were sent over Lightning. Discussed by Satoshi 2010, ZK can improve bitcoin privacy. Our experiment was the first real-world demo to showcase how:
13,369 views • 3 months ago •via X (Twitter)
18 Comments
@BTCPrague 0:30
@BTCPrague that you???
@BTCPrague Possibly
@BTCPrague You can only put so much lipstick on the dying Lightning cow
Background: we gave away free sats to bitcoiners at @BTCPrague using the Zerosats wallet. Users claimed their funds through a payment link and spent them as they would with any other bitcoin payments app.
Under the hood, every transaction is proven in zero-knowledge. Users prove they have the ability to spend a UTXO, and the network verifies the proofs. Only hashes are recorded publicly on the ZK network. Amounts and individual identities are hidden from any external observer.
The app’s Lightning integration is made possible by our HTLC circuit. Users can prove in zero-knowledge that they have locked funds into an HTLC escrow contract. Gateway pays invoice? They claim funds. They don’t? User claims after a timelock.
We will be running this network for another 2 months for testing and demonstration purposes. Public access will be enabled soon. You can read more about the tech, its tradeoffs, and its privacy guarantees here:
@BTCPrague congrats!!
@BTCPrague 🧡
@BTCPrague 🔥🔥🔥
@BTCPrague 🤝
@lxdev_ @BTCPrague Your analysts as Social Capital should review this @chamath
@stutxo @BTCPrague Cool
@stutxo @BTCPrague 🤝
@BTCPrague Really cool stuff! Massive unlock would be sdk for btc wallets to adopt
@BTCPrague Cool demo. Bitcoin's base layer stays transparent though. That's why Beam's approach matters - protocol-level privacy means everything's encrypted by default.
@BTCPrague zero knowledge and lightning? finally some real privacy play not just hype, actually working impressive stuff
![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](https://image.24vids.com/tw-2077037171521790155/amplify_video_thumb/2077029285437612032/img/adv6N-PXvunUqveH.jpg)
