Bitcoin infrastructure firm Blockstream has partnered with the ZeroSync Association, a non-profit organization based in Switzerland, to broadcast bitcoin zero-knowledge proofs via Blockstream’s satellite.
Thanks to this partnership, bitcoin nodes will be able to sync from any location on Earth, including those with poor internet coverage, in fractions of a second instead of hours or days.
“We are excited to announce today that Adam Back, CEO of Blockstream, has agreed to partner with ZeroSync to broadcast ZK Chain proofs via Blockstream Satellite!” ZeroSync Said In a recent tweet. “Faster sync than everywhere. Even without [the] Internet.”
In line with the latest development, ZeroSync intends to complete a test broadcast involving Blockstream’s satellite hardware before the end of the year.
Blockstream’s satellite network provides free global access to bitcoin by broadcasting the blockchain across the planet, including areas with unreliable internet coverage.
Created by three German computer scientists, the ZeroSync Association is a newly formed non-profit organization that seeks to help bitcoin scale using zero-knowledge proofs (zk-proof), a cryptographic technique that has gained in popularity over rival chain Ethereum. has spread.
“ZeroSync is leading the development of a proof-of-concept system for bitcoin,” the company’s website reads. “By implementing unprecedented cryptography, we are leading the future of bitcoin scalability, interoperability and privacy.”
In cryptography, a zero-knowledge proof is a method by which one party can prove to another party that a given statement is true without revealing it.
At a high level, a zero-knowledge proof works, in which the verifier asks the proposer to perform a series of actions that can only be performed accurately if the proposer knows the underlying information.
How Zk-Proof Can Help Increase The Privacy And Security Of Bitcoin
ZK-Proof can help bitcoin become more private and secure as the technology enables transactions to take place in a confidential manner, and only the parties involved in the transaction have access to the transaction details.
Furthermore, zk-proofs can increase the scalability of bitcoin by reducing the amount of data that needs to be processed and stored on the blockchain. This is achieved through a process called “batching”, where multiple transactions are combined into a single proof, thereby reducing the computational load on the network. ZeroSync states on its website:
“Successful zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP) promise a paradigm shift in blockchain scalability and privacy. While considerable engineering efforts are underway in the Ethereum community to implement this technology, no similar investments have yet been made for the bitcoin network.” Has been done.”
Specifically, ZeroSync has successfully developed a functional prototype that allows users to authenticate the current state of the bitcoin blockchain, including ownership data and transaction history, without the need to download the current 500GB of data on-chain. Not there.
