SCRF has been invited to host an independent research track as part of the 2021 Smart Contract Summit. We’ve chosen to present five panel discussions that touch on some of the most timely issues facing the blockchain space: “Identity and Reputation”, “Governance Theory”, “Governance Implementation”, “Privacy and SNARKS”, and “CBDCs and Blockchain”.
In this series of threads, we will be providing some deeper insight into the panel topics, the participants, and where interested viewers can find their most relevant works.
What is SCRF
The Smart Contract Research Forum (SCRF) is where academics, researchers, and industry leaders from all over the world come together to discuss research, solicit thoughtful peer review, and find new projects on which to collaborate. You can find additional information about our programs, grants, and initiatives in our repo; or feel free to join us in our chat.
About the Privacy and SNARKS Panel
zkRollups are one of the most promising technologies attempting to improve the scalability, privacy and security of public blockchains. In this panel, SCRF contributors discuss the evolution of this technology, critical design decisions and challenges with some of the top ZK researchers in this area.
Full Video
Panelist Bios and Relevant Works
Ariel Gabizon
Chief Scientist at AZTEC Protocol. PhD Computer Science (Weizmann Institute of Science), research at Columbia and Technion, formerly researcher and engineer at Zcash & Protocol Labs. Creator of AuroraLight & PLONK.
Some of Ariel’s work:
- Plumo: Towards scalable interoperable blockchains using ultra light validation systems. Ariel Gabizon, Kobi Gurkan, Philipp Jovanovic, Georgios Konstantopoulos, Asa Oines, Marek Olszewski, Michael Straka, Eran Tromer, Psi Vesely. (2020)
- PLONK: Permutations over Lagrange-bases for Oecumenical Noninteractive arguments of Knowledge. Ariel Gabizon, Zachary J Williamson, Oana Ciobotaru. (2019)
- Cryptocurrencies without proof of work. Iddo Bentov, Ariel Gabizon, Alex Mizrahi. (2016)
Relevant links for Ariel:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ariel-gabizon-6b423a8/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/relgabizon
- Company Website: Aztec Network: Ethereum, encrypted
Aleksandr Vlasov
Aleksandr Vlasov is the head of research and development at Matter Labs. He holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from McGill University (2018) and a specialist degree in Physics, Nuclear and Particle Physics from Moscow State University. Before joining Matter Labs, Vlasov was the chief research scientist at the BANKEX Foundation.
Relevant links for Aleks:
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/shamatar
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandr-vlasov-4863404a/
- Company Website: https://matter-labs.io/
Key Questions for our Panelists
Some of the questions we’ll explore during the panel include:
- zkRollups, and ZKPs more broadly, have been applied to crypto in the context of privacy, scalability, and usability. What was the primary driver that led you to your current projects?
- What was the hardest design decision when developing the architecture of your rollup solution?
- Are there primitives at the base Ethereum layer that you wish existed?
- Are you building your platforms with a specific use case in mind, or is the goal to provide the community with the tooling required to scale?
- What are some research developments in the ZKP field excite you the most?
- Do you envision interoperable zkrollups, or will the base layer provide sufficient interoperability?
- What privacy guarantees can users of your platforms expect? When will improvements arrive if needed?
- Why is there some convergence around PLONK? What set of trade-offs does it entail?
- How comfortable should we be about the security of these systems?
Watching the Panel
The Summit is taking place virtually from August 5-7. You can find the most up-to-date schedule and get your free tickets here.