A newly-unearthed video shows the Bitcoin pioneer Hal Finney giving a chat on zero-knowledge proofs on the Crypto ‘98 convention.
In the video, Finney talks about performing a zero-knowledge proof on a SHA-1 hash, demonstrating the existence of a cryptographically scrambled message with out disclosing any particulars concerning the message. On the time of Finney’s discuss, zero-knowledge proofs have been identified to be theoretically doable, however have been usually seen as inefficient or unfeasible.
“I wished to seek out out simply how inefficient or impractical they are surely,” Finney says within the video earlier than proposing a zero-knowledge proof system.
A lot of Finney’s life was marked by difficult the boundaries of what was deemed doable. In 2009, the cypherpunk was the primary bitcoin recipient, receiving ten bitcoin from the cryptocurrency’s pseudonymous founder Satoshi Nakamoto. The identical yr, Finney was recognized with ALS. Simply shortly after, he wrote in a weblog put up: “[M]y dream is to contribute to open supply software program initiatives even from inside an motionless physique. That shall be a life very a lot value residing.” Finney died in 2014 and is cryopreserved in Arizona.
The topic of Finney’s 25-year old talk stays vexing right this moment. Ethereum layer-2s are locked in an arms race constructing zero-knowledge proofs to scale the ecosystem. Nonetheless, the efficacy of this expertise is yet to be established. Implementing zero-knowledge proofs might be prohibitively expensive or compromise safety, rendering them inefficient and impractical.
In Finney-ian style, although, crypto builders are nonetheless chipping away at an answer.
Don’t miss the following large story – be part of our free daily newsletter.