Written for PSE by Vivek/Aayush, with contributions and notes from Andrew/Aditya/Kali/Florent. Final deliverable from the original house grant here. Overview At ETHDenver, we ran a hacker house involving 7 PSE grantee and full-time developers, covering 4 different projects: Vivek Bhupatiraju (Cursive grantee) Andrew Lu (Cursive grantee) Kalidou Diagne (Design team full-timer + Cursive) Aayush Gupta (zk-email grantee) Aditya Bisht (zk-email grantee)

Based on conversations with Rachel, Althea, Richard, Barry, and Aayush An attempt to return to private ownership of content, but still digital-native. A world in between vinyl records and Spotify. A future enabled by signatures and ZK. A tactile and smooth interaction powered by NFC chips. Things in bold are deliverables we need to perform initial user research at SBC. Reasons for existing Enables more intimate, human interactions in an increasingly digital and artificial world Tactile representation of private data ownership and the capability of ZK Efficient & folding friendly ZK proofs with Baby jub jub signatures

Written by Vivek of 0xPARC. Including ideas from Aayush of 0xPARC + Andy, Danilo, Barry, and Althea of PSE Zero knowledge cryptography is becoming more practical on many fronts. Computationally, proving simple statements in ZK (pre-image of hash, set membership) is fast enough to run on mobile phones, and proofs are small enough to cheaply verify on-chain. For developers, the work of groups like iden3, PSE, and zcash have made deploying new circuits much easier. And educationally, work from groups like 0xPARC and ZKHACK has given more people the vocabulary to understand the unique affordances of zkSNARKs. As a result, we are finally starting to see meaningful deployments of zkSNARKs that the average (zk interested) person can understand and play with. One of my favorite examples has been in-person pseudonymous groups at some recent conferences. I think in-person groups are kinda fuckin hype for a few reasons: Using Semaphore. Semaphore allows for the creation of plumes (i.e. hash(nullifiers)), or a second identity that maps 1-1 with a public key in the group but can't be linked by anyone other than you. This is currently not possible for on-chain ECDSA groups, but is necessary for voting schemes, useful moderation, and building pseudonymous reputation. Unfortunately, there aren't (yet) many Semaphore groups in the wild, but joining them at events is natural and easy. Easier to get engagement. We're still figuring out the right form factor and use-cases for zk-enabled interaction. As a result, apps can sometimes be too confusing or clunky for people to use regularly. But in-person it's much easier to answer questions, encourage people to try things, and get feedback. Lots of relevant groups to join. Your role at the event, which company you work for, which fields you're interested in, what your experience level is, etc. More groups means more detailed and expressive psuedonymity, which allows you to attach only the necessary reputation with your speech instead of your full identity.