2024 is situated as a breakout year for ZK and privacy

Gm and hny ZK enthusiasts,

As 2024 kicks into gear and the crypto ecosystem buzzes with ETF excitement, ZK has racked up its own set of announcements, releases, updates, and more. Let’s dive in — here’s the latest in ZK news across web3.

In this week’s edition of The Rollup:

• ⭐️ Announcing the Aleo Foundation

• 🗞️ The latest in ZK news

• 🐦 ZK in the Twitterverse

• 💻 Opportunities to build the future of privacy

⭐️ Announcing the Aleo Foundation

On December 20th, the Aleo Foundation was launched. The launch marked a significant moment in the evolution of the Aleo ecosystem. The Foundation aims to nurture the Aleo Network’s development, with a core focus on governance. The Foundation will also pursue three other key initiatives: developer education, a grants program that includes an initial allocation of 150M tokens, and product incubation starting with zPass. Learn more about the Aleo Foundation.

📰 ZK in the news

• ICYMI, CoinDesk published 10 tech predictions for 2024. Among the predictions are comments on ZK and privacy from a16z and Router Protocol, and comments on modularity from Starknet.

• OKX Ventures announces Series A investment in Polyhedra Network. Polyhedra Network is known for its zkBridge protocol that enables secure, trustless cross-chain interoperability and has introduced solutions like deVirgo and recursive proofs.

• The Starknet community has voted in favor of implementing the latest Starknet Alpha v0.13.0 upgrade. The upgrade introduces a new transaction version that allows fees to be paid in either STRK or ETH and aims to reduce transaction costs.

• Hedera-powered payments company SKUx secures two US patents. The patents relate to its “item-level” payment processing technology, aiming to enhance payments solutions and customer experience using ZK proofs.

• From Blockworks, Aleph Zero co-founder Antoni Zolciak theorizes that privacy has grown in its importance within crypto, and that the stage is set for mainstream visibility in 2024 with applications powered by ZK.

🧵 ZK in the Twitterverse

🔜 Just dropped: 2024 ZK predictions from the Zero Knowledge Podcast. Anna Rose and co-hosts Guille Angeris (Bain Capital Crypto), Kobi Gurkan (Geometry), Nico Mohnblatt (Geometry), and Tarun Chitra (Gauntlet) discuss emerging conversations in ZK and paint the “best” and “worst” case for ZK in 2024. Dive into the episode.

🗓️ Published just before the new year, Vitalik’s updated Ethereum roadmap looking back on 2023 and ahead to 2024 and beyond. Note ZK-EVMs in “The Surge” section of the roadmap 👀

🏗️ Build web3 privacy

Be sure to check out ZPrize Hub: your all-inclusive resource for opportunities to join the ZPrize DAO and build the future of the ZPrize competition.

• Aleo | Developer Relations Advocate

• Aleo | Software Engineer, Rust

• Axiom | Developer Advocate

• Axiom | Founding Smart Contract Engineer

• Axiom | Founding Zero-Knowledge Proof Engineer

• Axiom | Partnerships Manager

• Delendum | Senior Cryptography Engineer

• Ethereum Foundation | ZK Circuits Engineer

• Sismo | Smart Contract Engineer - Remote, Europe

• Sismo | Mobile Frontend Engineer - Remote, Europe

📜 The Rollup is brought to you by ZPrize: a collaborative effort across the blockchain industry dedicated to accelerating zero-knowledge cryptography.

You can expect to hear from us twice per month. In the meantime, connect with other builders in Discord.

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Yours in Privacy,
Team ZPrize