Vitalik Buterin of Ethereum Champions Use of ZK Proofs for Web3 Social Media Systems

Key Points

• Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum’s founder, highlights the potential of Zero Knowledge (ZK Proof) for improving social media platforms.
• Industry experts discuss the benefits of ZK Proof in enhancing privacy and scalability on Web3 socials.

Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum (ETH), has emphasized the potential of Zero Knowledge (ZK Proof) to enhance the functionality of social media platforms, particularly in terms of privacy and scalability.

Understanding ZK Proof

ZK Proof is a cryptographic method that enables verification while revealing minimal data. It’s seen as a revolutionary tool, particularly in decentralized social protocols that prioritize privacy and trust.

Buterin, while speaking at ETHCC [7] Brussels, recognized that ZK Proof’s potential is critical for specialized content filtering. This method allows users to control their data and manage access by third parties.

Buterin’s Views and Other Industry Insights

Buterin also emphasized the need for social protocols to offer a unique front-end experience, beyond ZK Proof. He referred to Farcaster, similar to X (previously Twitter), and Flink, which converts X into a platform like Reddit.

Other panelists at the ETHCC [7], including Chris Goes of Anoma, Shumo Chu of Nebra Labs, and Elias Tazartes from Kakarot, shared valuable insights on ZK Proofs and Web3 socials.

Goes, for instance, stated that ZK Proofs allow users to make more specific choices about what information they want to disclose. This is in contrast to Web 2 socials that aim to reveal rather than hide user information. Consequently, Goes believes that ZK Proofs offer more than just privacy, enabling selective information disclosure.

ZK Proof technology also requires fewer computational resources to verify large datasets, which makes it ideal for scalability, particularly for social protocols dealing with large volumes of transactions. Tazartes mentioned the new chain of the Web3 social building platform Lens Protocol, which uses ZK compression for scalability.

Shumo Chu of Nebra Labs sees ZK Proofs and Web 3 socials as a good solution to the potential risk of being banned or shadow-banned from Web 2 social media sites.

Despite the promising potential of Web 3 socials, the panelists agreed that more education is needed for people to understand the benefits of data ownership and information control.

In addition to Farcaster, which is similar to X (formerly Twitter), there are other Web 3 socials, ranging from professional networks to news feed aggregators.