An innovative Blockchain privacy solution forged at the Technion in Israel is taking its first steps from theory to reality.
Promoted by developers, the so-called Zk-Starks offer a promising way to compress large amounts of information into small tests, called Starks, and can use the Zero knowledge (cryptographic protocol that states that a statement is true) to preserve the privacy of that information. They are also efficient, transparent and safe against quantum computing, something that in the past has driven the excitement around technology.
Instead of launching a new cryptocurrency, founders Eli Ben-Sasson and Alessandro Chiesa go the corporate route, offering their innovative technology to real Blockchains in exchange for their native assets, or what the team calls the "technology for token models." "
Starkware will provide cutting edge technology to cryptocurrencies in exchange for a fee that presents the price in the local currency, and if the market limit increases as a result, Starkware will also benefit.
"The development teams are really like investors, but instead of investing money, they invest technology and skills," said Ben-Sasson.
The Israeli-based startup also has some major investors, who raised USD $ 6 million in an initial round of financing from Pantera, Floodgate, Polychain Capital, Metastable, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Zcash Company and hardware provider Bitmain.
In the company's first stage, Ben-Sasson said he will partner with some of the leading figures in the Blockchain space ("the usual suspects," said Ben-Sasson) to bring Zcash-style private transactions to public books.
Advocates from many communities have spoken positively about technology in the past, including the founder of Ethereum Vitalik Buterin, who previously hinted that such a system could be implemented on "Ethereum 3.0".
It is remarkable considering that while Ben-Sasson and Chiesa were both founding scientists at Zcash, the new technology offers a completely different result.
Ben-Sasson explained: "Our technology is exceptional because it is the only one in the market that allows a true exponential acceleration of verification for arbitrary calculations without assumptions of configuration, or keys that are distributed in advance."
As detailed by CoinDesk, the Zk-Stark tests are notable for their ability to hide information without sacrificing computational integrity, or what Ben-Sasson calls "transparent privacy."
If that sounds complex, it's part of a growing interest in Zero-proof knowledge systems, a form of cryptography dating back to the 1980s that has been touted as a way to preserve data privacy without hiding information to the point that can not be verified by the Blockchain itself.
While the underlying cryptocurrency technology underlying Zcash also achieves this feature, Zk-Starks allows Zero knowledge without the need for reliable configuration, a stage in the compilation of private Blockchain, which has been criticized for being vulnerable to attack.
Ben-Sasson said that although those qualities provided by the Zk-Stark technology give it an advantage over other privacy solutions, the duration of the tests is still quite large, and as such, they face a wide range of competitors.
"From a very rational point of view in this department you know, the unique transactions, the armored transactions. The purchases are good, but they are not unique. They are one of many solutions, "said Ben-Sasson.
In contrast, the privacy aspect of Starks is an option that can be set aside in favor of another feature of technology: compress large data sets.
"You could add Zero knowledge, you could have it without knowledge Zero. Each solution and chain could decide, "said Ben-Sasson," It's like a switch that can turn on or off with very little involvement. "