ZKSUMMIT 2024 FIELD NOTES

Summary from the TLDR Crypto newsletter

a16z research partner Joseph Bonneau documented his experience at the 11th zkSummit in Athens. ZK hardware has been accelerating support for faster proof generation, which, when paired with a zkVM, could achieve a 1000x overhead over primitive computation and potentially become part of Ethereum's final version. Decentralized prover networks promise to create more competitive and distributed markets for generating proofs for L2s and other applications. Instead of re-creating identification systems, protocols like ZK Email and zkPassport are building upon existing systems for greater anonymity and applicability.