Hello World: January Newsletter
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Hello 2024!

We’re ecstatic to move into the New Year with everything that’s coming in 2024. ZKM ended 2023 with tremendous gratitude and appreciation for our community — we couldn’t have had such a successful year without you!

Let’s start with the review of December 2023

December came and passed so fast. ZKM relaunched its newsletter and you can catch up on the past few months here. The ZKM team spent the month of December gearing up the upcoming year; reviewing our Early Contributor Program and updating the Contributor Board with exciting new bounties for our early adopters to continue earning POINTS, as well as adding on to the curriculum of the Education Hub, and preparing for the long awaited Testnet launch.

Pavel Sinelnikov, DevRel Lead Joins OKX Ventures and zkPass on X Space

Listen in: https://twitter.com/OKX_Ventures/status/1734417938026041461

ZKM teams up yet again with our frens, OKX Ventures and zkPass, to address the current standing of Zero-Knowledge Mass Adoption. Pavel takes the stage alongside Aetos, Project Manager of zkPass, with moderator Claudia, VP at PKU Blockchain to discuss the pros and cons of ZK and its active use-cases. Mass adoption is only a matter of time.

Early Contributor Program (ECP)

The ECP is a long-running campaign for community members to learn about Zero-Knowledge and to contribute to the growth of ZKM in its early stages. We find this campaign to be crucial as we build our community and our code base. Within the ECP, participants can take advantage of three contribution boards: General, Developer, and Education Hub tasks. Each of these boards host an array of tasks to complete in exchange for POINTS, guiding participants in ways that are designed to improve their ZK education and skills, while helping them to build and leverage their reputation within the community.

December witnessed over 1000 submissions on the ZKM Contributor Board

Woah! More and more participants are diving head first into the Contributor Board. We’ve made it easier to accrue POINTS by adding some highly engaging tasks on the General Contributor Board, which largely focuses on amplifying the word and works of ZKM. We are striving to improve the quality of submissions; not only because they’re distributed publicly, but also because they’re intended to be practice for a certain community program we will launch in the coming weeks (hush hush).

Contributors who currently hold at least 100 POINTS are encouraged to reach out to ‘Ben | ZKM’ in our Discord for inclusion in the private ECP chat, where they can take advantage of being the first to know about new bounties and have a direct communication line with the ZKM team. Holding 100+ POINTS also qualifies access to a private study group. So, get to the board and earn your spot in the private channel!

Contributor Board Updates

  • ZKM have expanded to Zealy: We have integrated our Contributor Board with the Zealy platform, which will largely be used to post recurring bounties. This is in the interest of keeping our original Contributor Board uncluttered, so if you’re participating in our ECP then please be sure to check both platforms for bounties to maximise the POINTS you earn. Go check it out: https://zealy.io/c/zkm/questboard
Be sure to watch Module 1 Lectures: https://youtu.be/aT6ym4TA1-0?feature=shared

Education Hub releases its first assignment

The first assignment for Module 1 ‘A High Level Introduction to ZK and SNARKs’ is officially ready! Test your skills, level up, earn your POINTS and course completion certificate. Get started by heading to the Education Hub in Discord > Assignments, click on Assignment 1 and submit your github link when complete!

Looking Forward

2024 is jam-packed, and we can confidently say we are excited to move on to the next step: Testnet.

In Q1, ZKM will launch its testnet to empower Metis Andromeda to upgrade to the long awaited Hybrid Rollup. By combining Optimistic Rollups with ZK technology, the Hybrid Rollup will cover a broader spectrum of use cases to give users and developers a smoother user experience.

Testnet isn’t the only thing to look forward to! Check it:

  • Starting the week of Jan 8th, ZKM will host weekly AMAs. Look out for the announcements and be sure to come ready with your questions!
  • EthDenver is right around the corner — keep your eyes peeled on X! We have big news for those of you who will be attending the conference.

More articles
How Can a General-Purpose zkVM Achieve Network Effects?
Network effects, as defined by Andrew Chen(a16z) in the book, The Cold Start Problem, describes what happens when products get more valuable as more people use them. As a founder of a hardcore infrastructure project building a general-purpose zkVM to unify liquidity across blockchains, how to achieve network effects for a lower-layer infra project is what I think about all day and night.
Getting to Know zkMIPS Proving Architecture
TL;DR: zkMIPS proves the correct execution of a MIPS program in five steps: it (1) divides the program in segments, (2) divides the instructions of each segment in four module tables, (3) proves instructions from each module table independently, (4) proves instructions from each segment is contained in one of its tables, and (5) recursively proves that the sequence of segment match the program execution. Step 3 is written as a STARK, step 4 is a logUp proof written as a STARK, and step 5 as a PLONK proof. All proof steps are implemented with the Plonky2 library. Optionally, one can generate a final Groth16 proof to verify the program execution on-chain.
Hello World: January Newsletter

Hello 2024!

We’re ecstatic to move into the New Year with everything that’s coming in 2024. ZKM ended 2023 with tremendous gratitude and appreciation for our community — we couldn’t have had such a successful year without you!

Let’s start with the review of December 2023

December came and passed so fast. ZKM relaunched its newsletter and you can catch up on the past few months here. The ZKM team spent the month of December gearing up the upcoming year; reviewing our Early Contributor Program and updating the Contributor Board with exciting new bounties for our early adopters to continue earning POINTS, as well as adding on to the curriculum of the Education Hub, and preparing for the long awaited Testnet launch.

Pavel Sinelnikov, DevRel Lead Joins OKX Ventures and zkPass on X Space

Listen in: https://twitter.com/OKX_Ventures/status/1734417938026041461

ZKM teams up yet again with our frens, OKX Ventures and zkPass, to address the current standing of Zero-Knowledge Mass Adoption. Pavel takes the stage alongside Aetos, Project Manager of zkPass, with moderator Claudia, VP at PKU Blockchain to discuss the pros and cons of ZK and its active use-cases. Mass adoption is only a matter of time.

Early Contributor Program (ECP)

The ECP is a long-running campaign for community members to learn about Zero-Knowledge and to contribute to the growth of ZKM in its early stages. We find this campaign to be crucial as we build our community and our code base. Within the ECP, participants can take advantage of three contribution boards: General, Developer, and Education Hub tasks. Each of these boards host an array of tasks to complete in exchange for POINTS, guiding participants in ways that are designed to improve their ZK education and skills, while helping them to build and leverage their reputation within the community.

December witnessed over 1000 submissions on the ZKM Contributor Board

Woah! More and more participants are diving head first into the Contributor Board. We’ve made it easier to accrue POINTS by adding some highly engaging tasks on the General Contributor Board, which largely focuses on amplifying the word and works of ZKM. We are striving to improve the quality of submissions; not only because they’re distributed publicly, but also because they’re intended to be practice for a certain community program we will launch in the coming weeks (hush hush).

Contributors who currently hold at least 100 POINTS are encouraged to reach out to ‘Ben | ZKM’ in our Discord for inclusion in the private ECP chat, where they can take advantage of being the first to know about new bounties and have a direct communication line with the ZKM team. Holding 100+ POINTS also qualifies access to a private study group. So, get to the board and earn your spot in the private channel!

Contributor Board Updates

  • ZKM have expanded to Zealy: We have integrated our Contributor Board with the Zealy platform, which will largely be used to post recurring bounties. This is in the interest of keeping our original Contributor Board uncluttered, so if you’re participating in our ECP then please be sure to check both platforms for bounties to maximise the POINTS you earn. Go check it out: https://zealy.io/c/zkm/questboard
Be sure to watch Module 1 Lectures: https://youtu.be/aT6ym4TA1-0?feature=shared

Education Hub releases its first assignment

The first assignment for Module 1 ‘A High Level Introduction to ZK and SNARKs’ is officially ready! Test your skills, level up, earn your POINTS and course completion certificate. Get started by heading to the Education Hub in Discord > Assignments, click on Assignment 1 and submit your github link when complete!

Looking Forward

2024 is jam-packed, and we can confidently say we are excited to move on to the next step: Testnet.

In Q1, ZKM will launch its testnet to empower Metis Andromeda to upgrade to the long awaited Hybrid Rollup. By combining Optimistic Rollups with ZK technology, the Hybrid Rollup will cover a broader spectrum of use cases to give users and developers a smoother user experience.

Testnet isn’t the only thing to look forward to! Check it:

  • Starting the week of Jan 8th, ZKM will host weekly AMAs. Look out for the announcements and be sure to come ready with your questions!
  • EthDenver is right around the corner — keep your eyes peeled on X! We have big news for those of you who will be attending the conference.