An introduction to zk-SNARKs – spooky moon math

Now, we are approaching a new kind of protocol called zk-SNARKs – a kind of non-interactive ZKP that is a little bit complicated, which is also known as spooky moon math. In the next section, you will see interesting new attack possibilities.

Non-interactive zero-knowledge proofs, also known as zk-SNARKs or zk-STARKs, are types of ZKPs that require no interaction between the prover and verifier, like the first protocol we saw in this chapter. In this section, we are going to focus on zk-SNARKs.

The name zk-SNARK stands for Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge. So we are facing off with schemes that need only one interaction between the prover and the verifier.

Indeed, zk-SNARKs are very much appreciated for their ability to anonymize transactions and identify users in cryptocurrency schemes, as we will see in this section.

zk-SNARKs have been adopted in the blockchain as a scope...