Zero-Knowledge Challenge Winner

Published date: June 1 2022
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ZK Summit Hacking Challenge Winner Selection and Zero-Knowledge Learning Resources

At Manta, we are building the technology to enable privacy on Web3 from the ground up. At the core of our technology is Zero-Knowledge cryptography which enables Manta Network’s privacy preservation functionality for all crypto assets.

Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKP) are a groundbreaking new technology enabling privacy, interoperability, and scalability. As this is the critical infrastructure we need to grow, we’re building with the zero-knowledge community. As you may know, we’re a contributor, architect, and sponsor for the Zprize. Like the XPrize, select teams will compete for monetary prizes spanning a range of categories with over $7M in prize money.

Why are Zero-Knowledge Proofs Important?

Zero-Knowledge Proofs are an important part of our infrastructure because it allows the prover to relay the truth of a specific piece of information to the verifier without disclosing any unnecessary information. This can be a critical aspect of protecting one’s privacy. One benefit of the blockchain is that it’s transparent, but this comes with major privacy concerns. Zero-knowledge Proofs are important because:

Trust: The validity of a ZKP can be confirmed by any user on the network. There is no need to trust a central authority to check the validity of a statement. If a statement is true then the verifier can confirm the prover possesses the required information.
Zero-Knowledge: The verifier will not have knowledge of anything other than whether the claim is true or false. The information and personal data of the other parties are kept private.

Overall, Zero-Knowledge Proof ensures that both parties in a transaction remain safe and trustworthy, otherwise the transaction can’t be completed. A more thorough overview of Zero-Knowledge and how we are building can be found here: https://medium.com/manta-network/the-evolution-of-zero-knowledge-proofs-in-web3-b92a68c41c04

Our Zero-Knowledge Challenge

As part of DevConnect in Amsterdam, we participated in the Zero Knowledge Summit where we created our own ZK Summit Hacking Challenge. We received four correct solutions to our ZK Summit Hacking Challenge. As originally announced, we selected one winner from among these four solutions by lottery. For full transparency, we will explain the lottery process here:

We designed a hash-based lottery in which we hashed together the following information in the Blake3 hash function: the proof hash (submitted on-chain by participants), the serialized proof, and the participant’s Ethereum address. The winner was determined to be the participant whose hash was closest to the Blake3 hash of “MantaNetworkZKSummit”.

The winning Ethereum address is 0A8E5928ff831E42b478E32Ba9Fb9507B79dE5b2. Congratulations! You will be receiving 1 ETH!

Finally, anyone wishing to verify that this lottery was performed honestly can do so by cloning the current version of the repo (found here: https://github.com/Manta-Network/ZKSummitHackingChallenge) and running the verify binary with the following command:

cargo run --bin verify -- --submissions submission.csv

What’s Next

Thanks to everyone who participated! If you’re interested in learning cryptography, we have curated a list of resources. One of the main and most resourceful links is the awesome cryptography GitHub repository which provides a list of books, courses, and tools.

Cryptography Reading List

The KZG10 protocol:

Topics in Cryptography Lectures

Zero-Knowledge University by zkDAO (ZKU.one)

The Zero-Knowledge community is growing daily, and you can benefit from it by being part of these communities. You can join the Zero-Knowledge University which is a study group on learning how to build Web3 products using Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP) technology.

Apply here (Closes on June 27, 2022, 23:59 UTC).

We’re in the initial phase of building out more knowledge and developer-centric challenges, so please follow our social channels.