Announcement:
Sign up and learn more about the ZKP/Web3 Hackathon here!
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Instructors
Dan Boneh | Shafi Goldwasser | Dawn Song | Justin Thaler | Yupeng Zhang |
Stanford | UC Berkeley | UC Berkeley | Georgetown University | Texas A&M University |
Syllabus (subject to change)
Date | Topic |
---|---|
01/17 | Introduction and History of ZKP |
Lecture
| Playlist
| Quiz
| Slides
Readings
|
01/24 | Overview of Modern SNARK Constructions
| Lecture
| Playlist
| Quiz
| Slides
Readings |
01/31 | Libraries and Compilers to build ZKP
| Lecture
| Playlist
| Quiz
| Slides
Resources |
2. Efficient Constructions of ZKP | |
2.1. Polynomial IOPs | |
02/07 | Interactive Proofs (IP)
| Lecture
| Playlist
| Quiz
| Slides
Readings Other Helpful Resources |
02/14 | Plonk Interactive Oracle Proofs (IOP)
| Lecture
| Playlist
| Quiz
| Slides
Readings
|
2.2. Polynomial Commitments | |
02/21 | Discrete-log-based Polynomial Commitments
| Lecture
| Playlist
| Quiz
| Slides
Readings |
02/28 | ZKP based on Error-Correcting Codes
| Lecture
| Playlist
| Quiz
| Slides
Readings |
03/07 | Transparent ZKP
| Lecture
| Playlist
| Quiz
| Slides
Readings |
2.3. Linear PCP | |
03/14 | Linear Probabilistically Checkable Proofs (PCP)
| Lecture
| Playlist
| Quiz
| Slides
Readings |
2.4. Recursive SNARKs | |
03/21 | Recursive SNARKs, Aggregation and Accumulation
| Lecture
| Playlist
| Quiz
| Slides
Readings |
Spring Break (03/27 - 03/31) | |
3. Applications and Advanced Topics in ZKP | |
04/04 | Theoretical Foundations & Recent Theoretical Advancements | Lecture | Playlist | Quiz | Slides |
04/11 | Overview of ZKP Applications & zkRollup and zkEVM
| Lecture
| Playlist
| Slides
Building opcode compatible zk EVMs | Lecture | Slides |
04/18 | Privacy-preserving Architectures
| Lecture
| Slides
|
04/25 | ZKP Applications & zkBridge, Trustless Bridge made Practical
| Lecture
| Slides
More ZKP Applications | Lecture | Slides |
05/02 | Formal Verification of ZKP | Lecture | Playlist | Slides |
05/09 | Hardware Acceleration of ZKP | Lecture |
Course Work
- Weekly Quizzes
- Programming Lab
- Homework
Quizzes
All quizzes are released in parallel with (or shortly after) the corresponding lecture and will be due midnight the following Tuesday. Please remember to complete the quiz each week. Although it’s graded on completion , we encourage you to do your best. The questions are all multiple-choice.
Course Completion NFTs
We will distribute NFTs for completion of the course. Below are the rules for different tiers (subject to change):
Honorary Tier: Instructors, guest speakers, TAs, and the most supportive students who help others on Discord will be rewarded with special NFTs.
Legendary Tier: Students must:
- Complete at least 10 quizzes on time (before the following lecture date as specified on the website); and
- Finish the HW by [due date].
- Finish the Lab by [due date].
Ninja Tier: Students must:
- Complete at least 8 quizzes on time (before May 5th 2023 PST); and
- Finish the Lab by [due date].
- Post an article online about a relevant topic covered in this course or your experience of the course, and tweet about the article.
For example a blog post on:
- Summarizing information from certain lectures
- Specific zk-proof protocols
- Applications of zk-proofs such as privacy or blockchain scaling.
Trailblazer Tier:
- Students must complete at least 8 quizzes before May 5th 2023 PST; and
- Post two articles (examples same as above) and tweet about them before May 5th 2023 PST.
Course Description
This class aims to bring together students and experts in academia and industry to explore Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKP). ZKP is a classical cryptographic primitive that ensures the validity of data and computations without sacrificing their confidentiality. It was proposed in the seminal paper by Goldwasser-Micali-Rackoff in 1985. Long considered wildly impractical, ZKPs have seen enormous efficiency improvements over the last decade. This has unlocked entirely new paradigms in the design of distributed and trustless systems, making ZKP one of the most important technologies to the future of blockchains. ZKPs are already being used to build privacy-preserving cryptocurrencies and to improve scalability via zkRollups and zkEVMs, and they stand poised to transform society’s mechanisms for establishing trust and privacy in the coming years and decades.
Our goal is to provide a platform for students to learn the cutting-edge technology of ZKP. Through the exposure to research in academia, and technology in industry, the students will be able to quickly gain the knowledge of ZKP and to develop ZKP systems for various applications.
This course covers fundamental techniques to build ZKP protocols, tools to implement ZKP for different computations, and different applications of ZKP in blockchain and other areas. Topics in the course include:
- An introduction on the history of ZKP. We will cover the theoretical foundations and early constructions of ZKP, as well as the recent theoretical advancements in this research area.
- We will cover the design of several current efficient ZKP systems. We will discuss the key ideas in the constructions of these ZKP schemes. ZKP schemes can be based on various different cryptographic techniques and the course will elaborate on their advantages and disadvantages in terms of efficiency, trust model and assumptions.
- To help students with developing ZKP systems and applications, we will provide tutorials on the front-end compilers to write ZKP statements. Students can write the computations using such higher-level programming languages, and compile them to low-level representations and run the ZKP protocols using these tools.
- Finally, we will cover applications of ZKP, including (1) privacy-preserving cryptocurrencies and computations such as Zcash and Zexe; (2) zkRollup and zkEVM that improve the scalability of blockchain; (3) zkBridge to build a secure foundation for multi-chain interoperability; (4) other applications in machine learning, program analysis, and network traffic analysis.
Assignment Timeline
Assignment | Released | Deadline |
---|---|---|
Lab (Submission) | 02/28 | 03/13 |
HW (Solutions) | 04/04 | 04/17 |
Class Start Date
January 17, 2023