The Rollup #4

The Rollup

March 30th, 2023

Gm fellow privacy enthusiast 🌞. Need proof that ZK is the future? We didn’t think so – we know you already know without you telling us that you know.

This week in The Rollup:

  • A Conversation with Adam GÄ…gol, Co-Founder of Aleph Zero

  • Your dose of zkInspo ✨

  • Opportunities to build the future of privacy

​​zkSummit is coming! Apply to join others researchers, cryptographers, and developers in Lisbon on April, 4th 2023.

Ready? Roll with us.

đź’¸ Paid Research Opportunity

Aleo is offering an opportunity to participate in a paid user research study. The study will involve a one-hour discussion online with an independent researcher. As a thank you for your time, they are offering a payment of $150.

If you're interested in this opportunity, please fill out this form.

đź“° ZK news, reads, & listens

đź“– ZK Stories

Today, learn more about the story behind the tech of Aleph Zero with Adam Gągol, the company’s Co-Founder and CTO.

Aleph Zero is a layer-1 privacy enhancing blockchain that ensures scalability, low transaction fees, and maximum security guarantees for developers.

Adam has a deep quantitative academic background, holding both a Master of Science and PhD in Mathematics. While Adam started his own web3 journey when he got into crypto in 2013, he and his team have spent the past nearly three years focused on building blockchain privacy solutions.

From Adam’s perspective, the inherent lack of privacy baked into today’s blockchain tech is one of its most frustrating aspects. As just one example, anyone can track any other person’s wallet activity. To maintain any sense of privacy, one has to create and manage multiple wallets.

Similarly frustrating for him, blockchain privacy has become highly controversial - associated with activities like money laundering. As a result, people have gotten used to the lack of privacy compared to TradFi, for example. But to Adam’s point, what if all emails were readable by everyone and a startup wanted to enable sending private emails? Any controversy would be considered absurd. And to Adam, the argument against blockchain privacy is equally irrational. He has adopted “privacy is not a bigger problem than the lack of it" as a mantra.

Adam also pointed out that most people won’t actually prioritize their own privacy over their time and money. So it’s critical that devs building privacy solutions identify clear economical benefits and implement user-friendly experiences.

As a collective, the Aleph Zero team feels strongly about working together on privacy as it just makes ethical sense. The team is focused on solutions where data is truly controlled by users, with no back doors that other entities can use to reveal this data.

Based in Poland, Adam and his colleagues have assembled a team ~35 strong who are true to its academic roots. The team has both cryptography expertise and rich academic backgrounds, and the company employs many former students from its partner university in Krakow.

Follow Adam and Aleph Zero on Twitter to keep up with what they’re building.

✨ zkInspo

What do you think is in store for ZK for the rest of 2023? Evan Shapiro, CEO of Mina Foundation, predicts that 2023 will be the year we will see more concrete and practical applications for ZK. Read more about his predictions here.

🏗️ Jobs in Privacy:

đź“ś 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, follow us on Twitter, check out our website, and connect with ZK builders in Discord.

If you enjoyed The Rollup, share with a fellow ZK enthusiast 👇.

Yours in Privacy,

Team ZPrize