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SLOW BURN

by Slow Burn Team
Weekly explorations into emerging crypto trends and how to navigate 2023 from
the Slow Crypto Team, Sam Lessin, Clay Robbins, and Caroline Cline
Subscribe to Slow Burn


MAPPING THE ZK ECOSYSTEM

A note to our readers: Along with this week’s Slow Burn newsletter, we are
excited to release our first podcast episode, featuring Goldfinch’s Mike Sall.
We had a chance to discuss his experience launching one of the first RWA
products, and the current and future state of the RWA ecosystem. For those
interested in listening, you can find the episode here!

Market Map

Several teams are already experimenting with, developing, and applying ZK
technology, both at the protocol and application layer. Still very nascent, ZK
building to date has been largely infrastructure-related; however, we believe we
will soon see a Cambrian explosion of applications.

10 Companies to Highlight

Aleo is a privacy-by-default, Layer-1 blockchain that aims to provide a
substrate for facile private application development. Built on a Zero Knowledge
EXEcution system (ZEXE), Aleo will support high throughput without compromising
security or privacy.

Axiom is a zero-knowledge coprocessor for Ethereum and EVM-based rollups. Using
ZK proofs to verify historical on-chain data, the coprocessor augments the
compute resources available to smart contracts consuming that data. This
innovation is particularly relevant to data-intensive actions, such as accessing
trustless oracles, creating secure randomness, and building complex financial
products.

Aztec is a programmable ZK-rollup on Ethereum. It currently offers an SDK, Aztec
Connect, that allows any ETH-based protocol to easily achieve privacy and
scalability. Its Rust-inspired language, Noir, is expected to launch this year.

Brine is a decentralized, low-cost exchange built on Starkware’s ZK-rollup. Its
order book design, enabled by Starkware’s architecture, supports a throughput of
~600,000 TPS.

Espresso is building the Espresso Sequencer, a consensus middleware that will
help privacy L2s achieve decentralization. To date, the team has launched
Configurable Asset Privacy for Ethereum (CAPE), an application that allows users
to wrap tokens and elect to obfuscate those assets and related transactions.

Merit is a ZK platform for employment-based lending. Leveraging employment and
payroll data attestation, Merit can offer employees access to low-cost, personal
lines of credit from financial institutions. Because this data currently lacks a
universal primitive for querying, and is therefore expensive to access,
borrowers are typically subject to exorbitant underwriting fees.

Mina is a privacy-focused, proof-of-stake blockchain that employs recursive ZK
proofs. Requiring only a knowledge of TypeScript, a JavaScript derivative,
Mina-native applications provide an easy entry point into both crypto and
privacy for developers.

Noxx is a platform for pseudonymous talent acquisition and payroll. Using ZK
proofs, Noxx verifies key hiring information without disclosing a candidate’s
identity. In so doing, Noxx hopes to create a meritocratic hiring process for
crypto-native (where pseudonymous employment is common) and traditional
companies alike.

Succint is a ZK-bridge solution for cross-chain interoperability. Unlike bridges
that have historically been susceptible to exploits due to production bugs or
multi-sig security compromises, ZK-bridges (like Succint) support the trustless
migration of assets by significantly reducing the attack surface.

zkSync is an EVM-compatible, zero-knowledge rollup. Built to improve Ethereum’s
scalability, zkSync improves on existing solutions (like optimistic rollups) by
eliminating the need for fraud proofs and building a language-agnostic developer
entry point.

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ABOUT SLOW BURN

Weekly explorations into emerging crypto trends and how to navigate 2023 from
the Slow Crypto Team, Sam Lessin, Clay Robbins, and Caroline Cline

Read the Archive | Subscribe for Free | Podcast

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