Foundations of Blockchain

zk-SNARKs

zk-SNARK stands for Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge. As the name suggests, it is a variant of zero-knowledge proofs in which you can prove the possession of secret information without the interaction between the prover and the verifier.

Many zero-knowledge proofs required the prover and verifier to communicate continuously by setting up a channel in order to prove the knowledge. Even the example considered earlier required the continuous participation of the prover and verifier. zk-SNARK has an initial setup phase where a common string called the public parameter is shared between the prover and verifier.

Zcash uses a forked implementation (https://github.com/zcash/libsnark) of the libsnarks (implemented ...