ZK WHITEBOARD SESSIONS
We wanted to tell the story of how the second season of the ZK Whiteboard Sessions came to be. This is a series of eight modules that were released between October 2024 and January 2025.
But how did it all start?
We at ZK Hack had been thinking for a while about how to make a sequel to ZK Whiteboard Sessions Season 1, which was produced and released back in 2022. The first season had been a collaboration with Polygon, and while we had floated the idea of working together again on the second season with them, the deal never fully materialised. So instead, we began looking for other ways to fund the series.
When Ethereum Foundation announced the ZK Grants Round, an initiative co-funded with Aztec, Polygon, Scroll, Taiko, and zkSync, this looked like a perfect fit for our project. And so we applied with the ZK Whiteboard Sessions Season 2 project, initially planning six modules with a release date set for late summer 2024.
After a couple of months of back and forth (and adjusting the release date to fall 2024), we were officially one of the 25 grantees – and the only one focused on ZK education!
Then, we were ready to work on the interesting part:
What would the modules be all about?
Since ZK is still a nascent technology, many new research papers have come out since Season 1 of the ZK Whiteboard Sessions, and with them, many new techniques, protocols, implementations and tools. But in order to determine what to cover in season 2, we had a significant advantage: our ZK Hack Study Groups.
Throughout 2023 and 2024, we ran three cohorts of the ZK Whiteboard Study Group, where community members gather on ZK Hack’s Discord to go through the modules, watching the videos and learning together. Here is how it worked: during the week, Study Group members would watch a ZKWS module on their own and then compile their questions in a shared document.
The group would then meet on Discord to discuss, go through our questions together, and learn. These Study Group cohorts provided very useful feedback about the modules from Season 1 – helping us to identify what worked, what didn’t, what was missing, and what needed some updates.
But before digging into that, let’s take a moment to thank Nico Mohnblatt. Nico has been attending most of the Study Group sessions, and filled the role of the SNARK expert able to clarify the trickiest concepts. The ZK Whiteboard Study Groups have been a great way to learn, made all the better because of his invaluable and continued support 🤗
Nico also joined us in the programming team for Season 2 and played a key role in curating the topics for the six modules, working closely with Bobbin, seasoned host from Season 1, and the ZK Hack team. The first brainstorming was already quite fruitful, with these suggestions coming up:
- Sum-check and linear-time provers (GKR)
- Lookups: lookups for gigantic tables, VMs from lookups only, various ways of doing lookups (multiset checks vs. PLOOKUP vs. LogUp vs. cq etc.)
- Binius / tower of binary fields
- FRI (which was not covered in much depth in season 1)
The next step consisted in figuring out a way to tackle some of these via a more “meta” approach, with general topics instead of a specific system. After some polishing, we had a list of five modules – with almost definitive titles!
- Sum-check + GKR
- Lookups: Update + different characteristics
- zkVMs (using sum-check & lookups)
- Small fields / binary fields
- Evolving treatment of FRI / STIR
At this point, we needed a sixth topic. As Nico kept stumbling upon some misconceptions on X, he suggested doing a module about what zero-knowledge is – as in, ZK the cryptographic property. For instance, saying “Proofs only use hashes of the public inputs, effectively making the input data private” is not correct; hence the need for covering the formal definition of ZK, and how to prove that certain protocols have it or not.
And that was it! “What is Zero Knowledge (like, actually)?” was added to the list, and we had our program to start planning for the production.
To do so, the next question was…
Who could be the expert guests for the sessions?
We had secured our second host by then, with Tracy Livengood joining Nico in our series – thanks Tracy 🤩
Some guest names came up quite quickly: Ariel Gabizon to talk about lookups, Uma Roy to dig into zkVMs, Jim Posen to explain how to use small fields, and of course, Justin Thaler for the sum-check module.
That’s when Professor Dan Boneh expressed interest in recording a bonus module on FRI – fantastic news indeed! And he even suggested a topic for an extra module: Updates on Folding. With this and some more confirmations from lecturers, we had our full list of modules and guests:
- What is Zero Knowledge (like, actually)?, with David Wong
- The Sum-Check Protocol, with Justin Thaler
- An Update on Lookups, with Ariel Gabizon
- RISC-V zkVMs, with Uma Roy
- Small Fields, Binary Fields, with Jim Posen
- An Update on Folding, with Albert Garreta
- FRI and Proximity Proofs, with Dan Boneh
Production
The production of the modules was no small feat, as we had to work around timing and geography to get the guests and hosts in front of a whiteboard for us to film. The module on zkVMs was the first to get recorded, as the ZK Hack team, Uma and Tracy were all in Brussels during ETHCC week. Our next recording opportunity came at ZK Hack Montréal, where both Nico and David were present.
A week earlier, we had also done the Sum-Check module in New York with Justin and Tracy, with members of our team flying down to facilitate. This one would later present a tough challenge in post-production due to light reflections on the whiteboard – a common problem with this video series (it’s called whiteboard sessions after all…). But the ZK Hack team is not afraid of any tough challenge, and we removed the reflections, almost frame by frame! 😅
Another module was then shot in Berlin with Jim around Web3 Summit 2024, and the last two were recorded back-to-back after zkSummit12 in Lisbon with Nico interviewing Ariel and Albert.
Release
We started releasing the modules on October 3rd, with a semimonthly cadence. Incidentally, the ZKWS Season 2 publication calendar coincided with the Zero Knowledge Podcast’s hiatus – allowing all zk-enthusiasts to still get some fresh new zk-content and satisfy their zk-thirst 😁
After a break for the winter holiday, the release of the two bonus modules about FRI recorded by Dan Boneh were also very well received by the community, and were a fantastic way to close the Season 2.
The modules in general have seen solid engagement – half of them already have over 1,000 views, which is not bad for such advanced technical content!
But…
Is it really over?
That’s a rhetorical question 😉
First off, we have been adding subtitles to the Season 2 modules: subtitles in English, but also subtitles in Mandarin with the excellent help of the Coset community. We hope it helps with educating and onboarding more people into ZK, and we are open to suggestions and collaborations to add more languages – feel free to contact us or submit a PR on GitHub. Do you know any Spanish speakers? 😁
Then, more Study Groups! We have already run a fourth cohort of the ZK Whiteboard Study Group right after the release of Season 2’s modules 1 through 6, and we are organising a fifth cohort solely on modules 7 and 8, “FRI and Proximity Proofs”, in March 2025.
Whether you are new to the space or more advanced, we recommend you check ZK Hack’s Discord as we will keep hosting more of these Study Groups; there is always something to learn by asking questions, or even just by listening to the Q&A of the group.
As we wrap up Season 2, we are also looking ahead. The discussions sparked by these modules – whether in Study Groups or more generally on Discord and at our events – will be invaluable in shaping what comes next. There is still a lot to explore in ZK, and we are always thinking about how to make the ZK Whiteboard Sessions engaging and useful for the community.
Got ideas or topics you would love to see covered? Let us know by reaching out via Discord, X or mail!
Last but not least: wen S3?
👀👀👀
