ZKPs are being touted as the next catalyst for crypto, a “game changer” that will make blockchain safe and scalable using revolutionary technology. It seems odd I would choose to criticize something so promising, but ever since I first worked with a ZK team five years ago I found one fact troubling: that ZKPs have actually been around for 3 decades but never found much adoption - although some of the related cryptography proved to be important - a story that seemed all too familiar to me. I started to grow cynical.

I’m going to argue that ZKPs are part of the blockchain shell game. Because blockchains have so many technical faults, ZKPs are touted as a solution - and the two together are so confusing it’s easy to pass another complicated concept over our heads. Both are immature technologies where the perfect solution resides at some point in the future, and that’s the ideal formula for more influencers to shill their bags.

In blockchain-land, ZKPs actually create a paradox: as the US and other governments squash privacy solutions like Tornado Cash, every permutation of ZKP-based privacy - fully private, partially private, rollups - is a loaded trap. Ultimately, we’ll see that while using ZKPs plus blockchains to solve our data and privacy issues in the tech world might seem like the holy grail, it’s more like a Hail Mary.

– Zero Knowledge Influencer: Are ZKPs Worth the Hype?