Intro (00:07):
Welcome to zero knowledge, a podcast where we talk about the latest in zero knowledge research and the decentralized web, the show is hosted by me, Anna and me, Fredrik.

Anna (00:27):
A big thank you to returning sponsor Least Authority. They've been a longstanding sponsor, actually sponsoring us quite often over the last I'd say six months and so big thank you to them for the support. Least Authority is a security consulting company known for their dedication to pushing the limits on how to build privacy-respecting solutions. They're a team of security researchers, cryptographers open source developers and privacy advocates. Passionate about advancing the security of projects on the blockchain. They're known for their security audits, like the ETH2 specification, Protocol labs' Gossipsub protocol, Atomix library, wallet, and smart contracts for Tezos foundation, Blockstacks' investor wallet, Centrifuge's Tinlake 3.0 and more. Their independent reviews improve the security of the technology by immediately helping the developers of the projects along with the users. And when the reports are published, the broader community can benefit from the shared knowledge. Now, this is why Least Authority is a sponsor of the Zk podcast. They recognize the potential for zero knowledge, proofs and protocols to improve the scalability of projects and the privacy of users. Now, if you want to follow what least authority has in store, be it security, audit reports, upcoming events, open source contributions and product development initiatives do join their mailing list: subscribe @ leastauthority.com/newsletter. So thank you again, least authority. Now here is our end of year and end of an era ZK podcast wrap up episode.

Anna (02:00):
So we made it!

Fredrik (02:03):
End of 2020. It's an interesting year know it's I think it's a year that when I look at it and think about it, like, I think it's definitely hit other people harder than it has hit me because I'm like such an introvert anyway. And usually don't leave my house anyway and have worked remotely for 10 years. Like all of this stuff is kind of normal to me, but then every once in a while, I talked to someone who it's not normal for and they're really suffering. And I feel with those people, who've like had to shift around their entire social circle and the way they work and everything else. It's, it's been a lot for people.

Anna (02:54):
Yeah. It's funny to like to come, you know, I just, before we started recording here, we were about last year's episode. So we've been doing these end of year episodes, now this is the third one, I guess. Is it like, is it the third one is the fourth one. I think it's actually the fourth one, because we did one, like right after we had started in the fall. I think we did one with Marek. We did one with Jutta. And then last year we did one, just the two of us - ah so it's the fourth time that we're doing this now, thinking back to last year's episode and like where we were at to where we're at now, it's been a, I think everyone would say this, but it's like been a journey. I don't know if anyone would have really heard much from the podcast though, because we were always doing it sort of like from afar, like we were, we, you and I, and I don't know if people realize that, like we were rarely in the same space over the last few years. So we were almost always calling in over zoom and then we're recording locally. So we're quite, even quite used to seeing Fredrik in that little window.

Fredrik (04:03):
Yeah, no, that's true.

Anna (04:05):
I mean, weird when we did it in person,

Fredrik (04:08):
There, there was a time in maybe 2018 that we're in a studio together once a month or something. Right. But now the norm is remote. I mean, all our guests are remote too. Right? So like we ran out of projects to interview in Berlin. I have to start calling people in! And yeah, so, like I said, it's, it's normal in some ways and obviously not normal than others, but it's been a, it's been a good year for the podcast to and meant we've, we've hit everything much thanks to you and less so thanks to me, but we, we didn't miss a week as we've not missed anything since our dedication to going weekly. It's pretty impressive. Yeah.

Anna (04:54):
Three years now, without missing a single episode. And this past year, we did 52 episodes plus a bonus episode. We've also had two summits. I did 13 study clubs, all amidst a global pandemic. I thought that was kind of, yeah.

Fredrik (05:11):
Telegram group is growing steadily as well. Has a lot of activity more than I can keep up with. I had to tune out at some point just to, I couldn't keep up anymore. Do try to check in to see if I'm pinged. Like if I, if anyone notifies me like @ me, I usually see it. Not immediately. Cause I don't have the notifications on, but I do like go back and look if I was pinged anywhere. But yeah, it's and tons of good content as well for this year. Right. Despite the pandemic a lot has happened in blockchain world in the past year.

Anna (05:48):
And I think some of the big, big, like highlights outside of, you know, what we talked about on the show necessarily, but I mean, in your world, Polkadot, launching, and we have talked about that already, I think in our AMA, but that was like, when did that actually it was like July. Yeah.

Fredrik (06:04):
So that, that's the thing is like when, when, especially when talking to other people, when he's talking about a launch and it's like, "Oh, that was a day, right? That was like one big event." Well, I mean, yes and no, like it started for me in April-ish, maybe even earlier, like mid-March, and it didn't really wrap up until maybe September. So that was like a good half year that I was like on launch stuff because there's, I mean, the way we launched Polkadot as well with like staged rollouts of various features and blah, blah, blah, it becomes a very long thing. And then there's like, obviously pre-work and post-work and you got to do a lot of management around it. So yeah, it became like the majority of my year for sure.

Anna (06:55):
Mm. And there were some other projects that came out that we talked to over the years, like, and I'm thinking there there's actually quite a few projects that came out nucypher near, Filecoin. So there's some of the, L1s also some of the L2s that had been sort of hinted at. And when you go to the Zk space space and we'll get to that actually a little bit later on, but like there's been a, this to me was the year that things that we'd been talking about are things that have been promised finally came due. And it's pretty awesome to see them in action, even if they're not all fully in action because some of the L1s I'd say are still sort of like in a, in a mid-state like they, they're not fully the, I mean, even if you look at Eth2 like its in very, very frozen state, but they launched, so they're out there. I mean, it's just, it's cool.

Fredrik (07:49):
The point of like, what is even a launch? I mean, when we say that polkadot launch, but it doesn't have parachains yet. So I mean, it hasn't really fully launched until parachains exist. So everyone is doing these staged roll-outs now where even ETH, right. They just had their first phase 1 and it's probably here is honestly until it's useful. And so yeah, like launch isn't this like one big thing anymore. It's, you know, you, you provide the spark of creation and then you leave it up to the community to say, okay, now take it somewhere. 

Anna (08:28):
That's actually, I think ETH was phase 0. That was the term. I mean, they got in kind of under the wire there. I felt there was like somebody had like challenged them to a duel or like bet them a, a beer or something. I bet you won't get it out before 20 end of 2020. They did it. I feel, I don't know. I, I honestly I feel tired. I do. I mean, I know everyone's very excited that there's a rally and like we're getting this end of year bounce, although we're recording this like 10 days before the end of the year, so who knows what's going to happen in that time, but roughly there's some end of year bounce. And I know there's a lot of people who are very excited. I really feel like it's been a great year, but it's been a, like, it's got it's one of these years that you, that you got to take stock of and you got to look back and you got to think these are the good things. These are the bad things. And this is what we got to shift kind of going forward. So with these kind of End of Year episodes, I mean, one of the things I think we did this last year too, was sort of rundown some of the topics or some of the episodes that stood out to us. Yeah. And like going through it, what, what do you have? What, what do you remember from this year's episodes

Fredrik (09:44):
This year? I remember less, in part because I was more busy, more other stuff going on. But also I wasn't involved in all of them. Right. And I think there were some really good ones that I, that I wasn't involved in. But for me, it, it usually comes back. Like the stuff that I remember I've talked about this on the show before is where I learned something myself and where like, I'm, I have some personal interest in it. And I think all of the, like the ones we did on theory-level stuff like Plonk, Fractal, Redshift, those are interesting to me, but I have a hard time like connecting it to how I'm going to, like, I'm not going to sit down and use this tech tomorrow.

Anna (10:29):
Although maybe one day.

Fredrik (10:30):
Exactly. But like, that's, that's on the like applicability level, right. Where I'm at my learning something that I'm going to use tomorrow. Those kinds of things stick very well for me, even though I think those episodes are really good. I did learn a lot from them. Something that stuck for me more was like ZK games. Whereas this is something like, Oh yeah, this is, I can play this game tomorrow. Or maybe I'll code up some game or like do something like this. And I like, that gets me excited for sure. Yeah.

Anna (10:59):
That was such a great one. That's the episode we did with Brian Gu talking about Zk game or dark forest. I think it's one of my, it's one of my favorites. We, like, I was listening to it again actually recently. And unfortunately the audio that we recorded wasn't as good as some of our other episodes, but I, I still think like, just that story I remember with speaking with you after, after the, the episode as well, and you were, you were like, this is the kind of stuff that I've been wanting to see, like something that's so engageable and using zero knowledge proofs. And I know you've brought it up since then too, is kind of like the, the beacon example of...

Fredrik (11:35):
Of like an application where it's actually used for something that people can relate to.

Anna (11:42):
And they actually, I don't know, like they went on to do, I don't know if everyone has, has seen that who's listening, we didn't actually have them on the show, but they presented a new Zk game that they created Bote Fite at the Zk summit to sort of round out the ZKsummit6. That just happened in November. It was like a mini game. I don't think it's what they're focused on, but I really do hope that they continue to develop that too, because it was like just, it was a little faster and easier, whereas Dark Forest, which I did get addicted to is a grinder. Like this is, this is a life suck in a way, like you're going to lose sleep and you're going to forget to eat, which is awesome. But also, you know, not for casual fun gaming, it's, it's, it's real.

Fredrik (12:26):
I always felt like that. The way it's a play dark forest is to write a bot that plays it for you. Like

Anna (12:34):
You can, can you,

Fredrik (12:36):
I would assume so, its my guess

Anna (12:38):
Is that what all those leaderboard people are doing?

Fredrik (12:44):
I think another one that stuck out to me and on the topic of like me personally learning was the Isogenies episode because it's like a topic that I've heard thrown around. It's something that was vaguely applicable to what I was working on, but I never really understood it. And I think it was maybe it was because I put more research into it before the episode, but I also feel like I walked away actually knowing how it works and like had a good intuitive understanding, which is it's hard to get. Hmm.

Anna (13:16):
I think on that front for me, one of the best episodes and one I've cited a few times was the one we did on consensus with Ittai Abraham. I found that, I mean that clearly struck a nerve. It like, it clarified a lot of things for me and I think that's probably why I keep citing it. I also think he's, he's just a really excellent explainer. He really thinks about how to explain what he's talking about and it was kind of a joy to have him on.

Fredrik (13:42):
Yeah. I think it's good to have some sort of "the same episode" a couple of times, like we've had at least two other episodes on consensus, but it's one of these things, like, there's so many examples of this in my life where I've had something explained to where something ... Where I walked through something or whatever. And I felt like at the time, yeah, I get it. And then you walk away, you forget it. Or like, it didn't really like, you didn't really get that intuitive understanding and didn't really grasp it or grok it, and then it's explained some other way or with some other intonation and it's it, it clicks. And I think it is good to have the same kind of topics on, on a sort of regular cadence. And, you know, we should never expect that our listeners go back and listen to 300 or whatever. There are 150 other these episodes

Anna (14:38):
Yea like 160. Yeah. We're not quite at 300. There was an episode that you weren't on. But that I very much enjoyed doing, which was kind of an unusual episode, which was like the Sushiswap episode, which a crossover episode with Hasu's Uncommon Core Podcast and Tarun was also on that one. It was kind of an unusual format. I think it ended up being like two hours in total. There was one episodes worth on the zero-knowledge podcast, one episodes worth on uncommon core and then a bonus part because it was recorded like the day that Uniswap was released, their token. They released it like later that day or the next morning or something. And so it was so kind of unfortunate timing because at the end of that episode, we're all pontificating on whether they should or if they will. And we're like, nah, and then it was like immediately proven wrong before we could even publish it.

Anna (15:34):
So yeah, we ended up doing kind of a bonus on that one, but I thought that was so much fun because it was such a saga. It was actually a story. And there's a few episodes like that in the past too. Like the Sean Bowe episode, or I think there's an episode of the Zooko that was like very much like a story trying to remember what yeah... Zooko and, and his trusted setup story. I think so there's like, there's a few of those episodes where we really got to like feel the drama, despite it being a very technical space, we kind of felt that, that drama. And I think the Sushiswap Saga had a bit of that one that you and I both did was also quite narrative. And I, this one stands out to me because Josh is amazing, but having Josh Cincinnati finally come on, the show was just a lot of fun. Yeah. And he's just really like, he's gotta have a podcast.

Fredrik (16:25):
Yeah. I think that was a good one too. And it was a somewhat complex topic that we covered a bit political, but I think we managed to do it in a good way. And I actually got a note afterwards from someone saying that we handled it pretty well with relative objectivity, despite obviously telling it from Josh's point of view.

Anna (16:48):
One thing that actually influenced sort of what I ended up doing was like the Trusted Setup Review. So I did this trusted setup review, which was just kind of showcasing what Trusted Setups had happened up to that point. And this was in the summer. And what's interesting is since then I actually have had a chance to work with two teams doing trusted setups. One of which is live now, which is Plumo for Celo, Clabs, but it was actually that podcast and learning about how it worked and then realizing like there's not that many people in the world who know that. And I'm really glad that I got a chance to record it and then also share it because now a lot more people do know it. They know what the experience of going through setting up one of these trusted setups is like. They hopefully have some sense of like how frustrating it is, but also how it's kind of this, it's not a labor of love.

Anna (17:39):
What's the word for like a group of people going through something together ... Whatever that is. It's something that people have to go through together and they seem come out the other end, you know, in a good mood. And then there's, there's a few projects that I just want to kind of do a shoutout to because you know, the zero knowledge podcast, starting as a blockchain podcast and evolving into a zero knowledge podcast. Last year, I feel like it was focused very much on the new protocol development, the new kind of ideas, the new research there was like SNARKtember ? Snarktober? One of the, whatever, one of these, but this year it was like projects that we've, you know, basically the things we've been hinting at or the ideas that have been floated, they started to actually come live. And some examples of that would be like Hermez, Loopring, MACI, Deversifi, and also projects like Aleo that are the ZEXE curve from the ground up. And I mean, by live, some of them are still on Testnet, but like the engineering is happening now and at a professional level, not just at a POC level. So I think that's been pretty awesome.

Fredrik (18:49):
There's one episode that I can remember, but honestly not for its contents. I do remember there were some interesting discussions, but I can't really pinpoint exactly what they were and it's the episode with Vitalik and Justin. And the reason I remembered is just their setting was so crazy. It was at the start of February the pandemic had, like, I think it had been announced a pandemic, but I'm not exactly sure it hadn't really hit the US yet. There weren't any tribal bands. We were all in San Francisco at Stanford Blockchain Conference. And we were meeting up with Vitalik and Justin afterwards went out to their like big mansion that they had rented with the whole ETH team. And we were sitting in this room and metallic was sick.

Anna (19:35):
I know he's very sick. He coughed a lot. I think we cut it out.

Fredrik (19:40):
In the middle of a pandemic, like interviewing someone who's sick in their house like house, but it's I don't know. There was some, some interesting sort of, it was an interesting episode to learn what goes on at ETH research that isn't just like, "Oh, we're doing this new consensus algorithm." Like it, what they work on is pretty broad. And I think that, that's the interesting highlight of that episode.

Anna (20:10):
I also thought with that one, I mean, I thought I'd love to have them on again or someone else from that team on again, but I think it's really good that we did that, that sort of episode as an introduction to what we're digging into. I mean, actually I would say I have since then, you know, had MACI and there's a few other projects that are deep in the ETH research team... What do they call it? The ZK working group or something like the zero knowledge team, like focused on that research. I have had a few of those projects on our, I will have a few of them on, but I, I would love to have Justin and Vitalik or one or the other come back on and continue that conversation, like take it that next level, because I do think it was quite introductory. And I'm sure we could talk about a lot more stuff. So I think that covers a lot of the episodes that we remember, but there is a full selection of episodes and the truth is a lot of the time it'll come up in conversation maybe in a future episode. And then I'll remember like this key point from an episode, I guess what I'm trying to say here is like, none of my children are my favorite or something. There's like, I'm trying to make sure that, that everybody knows.

Fredrik (21:20):
I think it's also unlikely that what will you remember is what other people remember? Like, I don't feel like there's like, Oh, this episode is just clearly objectively better than all the others. And therefore - go listen to that one. Like, this is our subjective list of just random stuff. Right. Where if someone else went through all the 53 episodes, then they'd probably come up with a different list of favorites.

Anna (21:47):
So yeah, just hearkening back to that distance between the 2019 episode and this one. Back then I had, you know, we just picture, like I was, both of us were just looking out at this big open year. I expected to be traveling the whole time. Like I had been. I also had a few projects lined up that didn't work out. One of them or didn't work out last year. So one of them, and this I've been asked a few times about this last year, there was a planned SNARKs kind of course, a Coursera course. And it actually was partially completed when the whole lockdown happened and it unfortunately delayed and kind of pushed back what we had planned. Now I know that there's still hope for that course. And it is something that continues to be like a possible thing to release next year. The only thing that's tricky is that Zero Knowledge research stuff moves quickly.

Anna (22:48):
And so hopefully when we release it, it's still viable. We may have to rerecord some of it to make it happen. But for anyone who's been asking and I have gotten a few emails about that, that is still in the works. I want to apologize that, you know, it's one of the projects. I'm very proud of the projects that did come through, but this is unfortunately one that hasn't yet. I do like to deliver on the things I say I'm going to do on the other side of that though. On a more positive note, the Zero-knowledge validator, I think this past year came into its own because I mean, just picture, I think it started in the summer of 2019, we had our first node in the Cosmos, like in the set in November, I believe. So last year it was still a pretty kind of minor project.

Anna (23:34):
We weren't sure how it was going to go. We weren't sure if it would be well-received the ZK Validator being the, like an entity that I created with Will Harborne and what we do. We're a validator on numerous L1 that have proof of stake and using the funds that we generate, we have kind of various ways of connecting those L1 with the zero-knowledge community or championing zero-knowledge proof research or development on those L1. And we're looking for all sorts of ways that we can basically focus in on that one topic and be the representative in a way on these different networks. Anyway, I'm very pleased with how that's turned out and yeah, I don't know, random, random side note plug for something I'm doing, sorry. I was told this year that I don't shill, which is hilarious, cause like the moment someone tweeted that at me, I feel like I just became a terrible, terrible shill and I I'm sorry. And I'll do my best to go back to normal as soon as possible. But I don't know. I also want to be proud sometimes, is "be proud" too lame. I don't know how to say that.

Fredrik (24:38):
No, I think it's, it's good to be proud of what you do and feel like you can talk about it. Like it's not all talking about something as schilling either. It is actually like a, an interesting topic to talk about shilling. Cause like everyone has a slightly different interpretation of the word and many have a negative connotation, but also many don't. Right? I think that's, you know, as I look at crypto communities in particular, I there's one community that oddly I respect more than most others and it's like the wall street bets type of people who are so upfront with just like, I'm here for the money. I'm gonna like play this game to gain as much as I can. And that's why their hair and it's very honest and open and like, yeah, they're shilling, but you know that they're shilling, you know why they're shilling? There's no, there's nothing else going on. And I think it, I think as long as you are open and honest and just like, know why you're doing something and being honest with that, like showing can be a good thing for sure.

Anna (25:49):
Yeah. I like, I actually was just thinking about this the other day, which is like this idea of intellectual honesty... In this space. You feel it a lot, people have either publicly or not publicly, they have tokens. They, they have stake in something sometimes like, you know, if you look at the VCs or the, even the angel investors, like they're going to, they're going to be really heavily positioned and that will influence what they think is cool and what they think is lame. And depending on how convincing they are and sometimes like how intransparent they are, people might be buying into what they're saying and believing it as like truly thoughtful fact. When there, there is, there's an interest in, in their thought leadership, there's like a, a reason that they're highlighting something over another. But I don't know, like the trouble is, is like, it's so normal. It's so natural, very human. I don't know how, and I don't know that I'm not guilty of that sometimes too. Like I'm sure that I have friends in certain teams that give me bias towards them.

Fredrik (26:55):
Everyone has biases, but I think, I mean, this is a thing that comes up with like YouTube reviewers all the time, too. Right. Where can I trust this reviewer? Is he actually going to give an honest review? Or like, he's he, he got this camera or whatever from the manufacturer, obviously he's not going to be honest. But then like something I've learned from watching YouTube reviews hehe is you just need to learn that person and their biases. Right. And I think, yeah, MKBHD is very big. Reviewer has an episode on this where he talks about, you know, you have to watch his episodes to learn, learn what he is, what his biases are, what he likes and dislikes. And then you view his stuff with that lens, right? I'm not gonna watch an MKBHD video with the same lens as a Linus Tech Tips, video, because they're very different people who like different kinds of stuff and have very different biases.

Fredrik (27:54):
The problem in crypto space is personalities and like entities aren't. So well-developed that I can, you know, subscribe to a person and then know, after a couple of whatever that this is their bias, this is what they think. And this is like where they're coming from. It's all very sneaky. It's all very - trying to hide the bias rather than bringing it to the fore and saying like, here's my bias. And, you know, listen to me with this in mind. And there's also a lot of like shady, like actually shady tactics, like buying Twitter accounts and having puppet users.

Anna (28:32):
Although, I mean, that was invented in Silicon Valley that wasn't invented in crypto. Yeah,

Fredrik (28:38):
Sure, sure. I mean, it exists in many places. It's just in other places we found more or less effective ways of filtering that out right here. We haven't really found a way to address that yet.

Anna (28:53):
Yeah. And I think there's, I mean, I think now it's been three years, actually more than three years of being in the space. Three years that we've been doing the podcast, I'm actually really pleased with the fact that I don't think we've had, at least not many projects on that I would say ended up being real crappy. There are, there are a few that maybe have evolved a lot and there's some that maybe had tough endings, but the people that we had on, I would say for the most part, they came in good faith. And I don't think we had too many people who I felt like came with some agenda or were like really ready to like bullshit towards some goal. I think people that we've had would have been good

Fredrik (29:36):
The combo of both being picky and who we choose in like doing a bit of research ourselves and looking at it and critically, but also just like, it's hard to on a very technical topic for an hour. Yeah, it gets tricky. Like it's easy to in 140 characters, but when you're actually sitting down and talking about something deeply for an hour, it gets really hard.

Anna (30:06):
So I think we should chat now a bit about you and what you have planned.

Fredrik (30:16):
Big announcements that might or might not be spoiled by the title of this episode. I'm not sure what we will title it, but maybe I think we probably should spoil it by the title, but yeah, the big announcement is I'm leaving the show and we'll see what leaving really means. I don't think it's my last episode ever, but yeah, we've touched on this already a little bit where most of this year was taken up by launch stuff for me. So like back in April, all throughout June, basically, there were a lot of episodes that I've missed already and you've brought in other co-hosts and back then it was a hundred percent like a time thing. It was just not possible for me to take an hour and a half a week. But a couple of other things that I think people are mostly aware of, but like I don't talk about a lot is during that whole same time I was moving to Berlin, had a small baby that's slightly over one year now -starting to demand more attention than like when she was a three month old, mostly sleeps all day, I could gave more or you're recording an episode of a podcast while she was sleeping I could game or record a podcast. It gotten harder and harder.

Fredrik (31:38):
And so as I'm gaining time back now from launch being done, I do want to spend time on that instead. And even though like an hour and a half a week, isn't that much time what I've found in like, as I've tried to get back into this, what I found that I struggle with as if I treat it as that as just an hour and a half a week, it's not very satisfying for me or I think for the guests, because I don't put in the research that I want to put in. I don't come to it like with enough thought and enough like presence of mind that I want to be in the episode with. So in, at the end of the day, I think it turns out to be a worse episode. I think it's unfair to the guests to not really come prepared.

Fredrik (32:28):
And if I really want to do it the way I want to do it, then I don't know that it's, it's the presence of mind thing. That's the biggest thing for me. It's like, I need like get amped up. I need to feel like I really want to do this interview. And if I know that I'm neglecting something else, then I can't really do that. And I think maybe this is also the way that the pandemic has affected me the most is that because we moved right at the start of this, there were a lot of things just in life that didn't really pan out the way it should have, which is like sending our daughter to kindergarten was extremely difficult and took longer and bunch of problems. There weren't really any parent groups because they weren't allowed to meet anymore. So it's been much more taxing on my wife more than me. But that also means that I want to make sure that I actually take the time now to, to not have it be that taxing on her. And there's a lot of just life stuff in general, as well as like work stuff, obviously that, that plays into my choice here. Yeah.

Anna (33:42):
Yes. So I do want to say like this year it was in, I think it was around April, March, April, that we kind of agreed that you would, that I would do more of the episodes and that I'd also like, I kind of suggested it. I think I was like, there's some other folks that I want to see what it's like doing some guest hosting with them. And to me, the way that I, I mean, I've known about this decision a little longer than our listeners. And I'm obviously, I feel like it's a bit of the end of an era because it was three years that we did this show together as Anna & Fredrik doing zero knowledge. But I do feel like in the last year it was like you were starting to sort of step away anyways. And so it's not shocking.

Anna (34:29):
And hopefully for our listeners, it's not devastating, but I hope you'll keep listening. But at the same time, it is the end of a chapter of this podcast. I mean, this podcast came up because you wanted to do it. You had this idea of having a technical podcast that you couldn't quite find in what was out there at the time. We were both working at Parity and Jack Fransham stepped up and basically said, I want to join too. We started this as a three person podcast. And then soon it became a two person podcast. And I think most people have only known it that way. But I think of this three year journey. I mean, what's, I think it's sad, but I also think it's timed interestingly, like it's a bookend in a way to these three years. And if you think back to where we started as people and as professionals in this space, I guess I can call us that. Like, it's been a long... We've come a long way, I think. Right.

Fredrik (35:32):
For sure. I mean, the difference between not even the first, but like the first of episodes and content to now is for sure night and day, both in gear and tech and editing and mixing, and post-processing as well as interviewing and general contents production. I think it's, it's a, a big difference. And yeah, I think it's in a weird way, it's it is perhaps a less dramatic change for us because it's the same thing as happened with the summit, right. Where we did the first summit, where I was participating quite a lot as you were still

Anna (36:14):
You programmed it with me.

Fredrik (36:16):
You're still the one, like arranging it and fixing all the venue and everything like that was actual work, but I was involved. And then over time I got less involved with summit. The last two, I think I haven't been involved at all. The study club I've basically never been involved in, so the ZK brand has grown and it's grown without me and beyond me. And so it, I think it's pretty natural for us that I step away from the podcast. And it's your podcast. I don't know what it will be like for the listeners. I don't think, I don't think it would be, or should be a large upset because we've like, like you've said, we've already done lots of episodes without me. I think we've proven that the content can be great anyway,

Anna (37:07):
Maybe, but I would say this, like, I think there is something about the combo of you and I doing these interviews. And I do hope, and I think that we've, we've talked about this. I think when, when the time is right, you're going to be back for, for sure, for some guest episodes, guest host episodes, and who knows where you're at in the future. Maybe there's a moment where you do feel like joining again. And obviously the door is absolutely open. I think it's been a real kind of pleasure working with you. So,

Fredrik (37:39):
Yeah, likewise, I do think I'm looking back at the three years. I do think there is a lot accomplished a lot to be proud of. I mean, it is definitely no small fee to go weekly on a podcast, especially on a topic like this. I remember when we first, like at the very first inception of this podcast, we were thinking monthly, and then I don't know why we switched to weekly.

Anna (38:05):
That was your idea. You were like, I think you were like, it only works... Audiences only grow, if you do it weekly, you would, you'd seen this, you knew this somehow. And I was like, "wow, that's insanity." How do we feel like 40 minutes per week? And now actually most of the episodes are about an hour

Fredrik (38:26):
I did. I did. I do remember thinking we would definitely not be able to like, keep it up that we would miss here and there, but that's fine. But then we ended up not missing anything. It was pretty cool.

Anna (38:38):
I want to ask you a few kind of questions as we kind of wrap up this three year journey. Like we started, remember we started it, it was a blockchain podcast. It was not a zero knowledge podcast. And I actually wanted to ask you, I want to, I want to hear what you're thinking. Like, I don't know if you actually entered it with a ton of optimism of like "blockchain is going to save the world", but like over these years, like where do you stand on that front? Do you feel hopeful or do you feel less hopeful? Like knowing what you've learned?

Fredrik (39:11):
I still feel hopeful, but it definitely goes in waves. I remember talking about this with the episode with the guy from Least Authority, whose name? I can't remember. I'm sorry, but I will, I said that I entered the space almost purely out of technological interest, you know, from a coding perspective, working on P2P protocols and consensus algorithms and networking, and all this stuff is super fascinating, but relatively quickly, and actually went more into philosophical direction. I kind of realized as I was working on it, then, "Hey, actually, this can have a really transformative effect." It can have huge impact on society. And then I think over the past three years, we've seen more and more instances of these centralized entities abusing their power. And the every time I see someone abused their power, it's just like, no, we actually need to fix this. This is going to be terrible.

Anna (40:15):
That's interesting. Cause for when I see those things, to me, it's more like there's more inevitability. Like it's not so much, "Oh, that's bad and we've got to fix it." But it's more like that is going to get washed away in time because it doesn't work. It's lost the hearts and minds of people. They're not trusting this at all. It's going to be really hard to get people to trust what's coming. But like, to me, it's just like, it's actually signs that this is happening.

Fredrik (40:44):
Yeah. Yeah. I do. I do get that feeling every once in a while too. Like I have this internal discussion of like, do people care about privacy. One day, I'm like, yeah, I think they do. And another day I'm like, no, they definitely don't care about privacy. And I think it's the same kind of thing here. Where do people care about whether people, whether businesses are tracking them online or not, which is sort of privacy, sort of not. But then I do also get back to like, no, I like, I see this problem. I think I know what a technological solution could be. Like. I find it weird and fascinating that browsers are now starting to take the fight on tracking. When browsers were the things that allow like introduced tracking in the first place? Like if you think about it, browsers are the thing that, that invented cookies. They're the things that lets businesses track you. Why not just make a browser that bans those things.

Anna (41:50):
But who's, who's fighting it. You mean like Mozilla

Fredrik (41:53):
Or like Apple is definitely on the forefront of taking up the fight on privacy. Like Safari has built in content tracking and it's not great, but like it's something and like there's a big fight now between Facebook and Apple, because Facebook is seeing what Apple is doing as detrimental to their business, they can track people anymore. And so they're really pissed at Apple, but it's just like annoying that it has to be like this big centralized entity, like Apple that goes in and says actually our competitive advantage over Google is that we have a business model that doesn't require tracking people. Therefore we can go strong on privacy and try to attack Google that way. Like it's not because they care about people, obviously it's because it gives them a competitive edge. Whereas Google's entire business relies on tracking people so they can't offer privacy.

Anna (42:54):
It's so funny because I think of like privacy and blockchain as sort of, I mean, I think maybe earlier on, I thought they were very intertwined, but now I think of them as quite separate. And I think of the example you gave of like Google and the browsers being in the business model, being about trackability, but they're also in a way, not so much anymore, but their whole philosophy was more transparent. Apple was always more shadow figure and closed. And so privacy sort of fits in their motto. And I think that blockchain privacy in a way, I mean, yes, every, every L1 that we speak to is like trying to build something in or wants to build something in. But like I also think there are differing forces here and it's going to be very interesting to see like w what I was talking about before with the inevitability, I think was more about like decentralized systems are kind of inevitable.

Anna (43:50):
I feel like, I feel like we're going through these cycles of like centralization and decentralization, and I get the sense that we're heading towards a decentralization, actually. But in terms of privacy, I don't know. I mean, I re I'm sort of surrounded by the privacy scene in a way, and I feel like that's what I read and follow and stuff like that. But I mean, the average person that I know who isn't in the space does not have any real sense of their own lack of privacy. So there was this show that came out this summer called the Social Dilemma on Netflix. And a lot of people, I know who aren't in tech or in blockchain, we're so excited about it, but if you watch it, like anyone who works in tech is like, this is, this has been very clear and obvious for years, for like 10 years, not like a little bit of time.

Anna (44:46):
And the fact that people were like, "what?", Again, it's not the first time that has been revealed, but they, they keep forgetting and they keep needing to be reminded, it seems so. That's why I, I, I worry about like, just the general public's attitude towards privacy, I guess. I guess the sad thing is, is like bad things have to happen. And then going forward, people pay attention. I don't know, live in a world where it's like East Germany, either, like where everyone becomes very secretive and, you know, paranoid and worried... There's gotta be some balance. But yeah, right now I feel like it's heading more towards more transparency, but at the expense of ppl.

Fredrik (45:26):
Yeah, I think and I think, I don't know if it was an episode this year or last year we had an episode with, yeah. We had an episode with Tux who talked about "selective disclosure". And I think that's the key where it's not about.

Anna (45:45):
Was that Tux or Benedict?

Fredrik (45:47):
I don't know. Maybe both, it's a relatively common topic now. But I think that is the future where it's not all on or off like that we can't live in a world that is that way, but I should have a say in what I revealed to him. And then be assured that that's, what's going to happen. That's a problem, right? Like, Oh, I actually do feel like I can give my data to Google because I don't really care if Google sees it, The company. My problem is that I know Google is going to sell that and I don't know they're going to sell it to like, that's my problem. And if I can say, I am finding with sharing this with you, but I don't want you to go and sell it to whoever you want, then if we can crack that, then, then I think that's the sweet spot. But I also think like blockchain and privacy definitely don't go hand in hand. Like there they are not at all related. And then originally it just happens to be that the people interested in one is usually interested in the other.

Anna (46:54):
And actually, I think like the zero knowledge proof in a way, in a weird way is a bridge bridging point between those things. And that's what could enable this selective disclosure idea.

Fredrik (47:07):
But I'm still excited about blockchain tech as a, like, I think what, what people mostly don't realize or don't talk about is how underlying, like bottom level, layer thing. It is like, it shouldn't be known that something is like... People don't know that they're using TCP IP, like in the same way, they shouldn't know that they're using a blockchain, but blockchain is still that underlying, you know.... Provides a peer to peer network that is free from people listening or free from centralized actors, being able to censor and providing those sort of very core layer stuff. And we had that and we had that in the nineties. We had P2P networks, we have the P2P networks and other places it's just that they usually don't work. They don't scale. There's a bunch of problems with them. And still from what I can tell most of those problems stem from not having an incentive layer. And so merging those old technologies with an incentive layer, that's what provides an actually functioning, scalable, like human, scalable core that then we can build stuff like privacy and other things on top of, but it's also, I think a problem with the blockchain space is that so many people are, you know, "mainstream, you know, hunters" where they're, Oh, I'm working on this blockchain application and it's going to be mainstream. No, no, it's not like it's ridiculous notion that it would be mainstream, whatever anyone is doing right now. 

Anna (48:43):
You really think that that's so far off.

Fredrik (48:45):
I mean, you said it yourself, of like, we've talked about privacy and like Facebook invading people's privacy for 10 years and the mainstream still doesn't really get it. Like they're starting to get it. Now. It takes 20, 30, 50 years for mainstream to actually start understanding and using something that's, it's a different timescale than people expect. And we are kind of 10 years into this now, so it's not like, Oh, we have another 50 years to go. But in tech usually like adoption usually accelerates over time. So maybe we're only 10 or 20 years away, but I still think that's the timeline we're looking at. And I don't think you can sell a blockchain application as anything mainstream today. Like you sell whatever is like two, three layers above that. Like, that's what is mainstream

Anna (49:36):
For sure. But I also, I agree with you that I think the, this, this concept of what's happening underneath while it may be financially trigger, like there might still be a connection to a, almost like a share or a stock or something like that. I mean, the token could still be there, but like the, that at some stage it's so over, like the layers are so high that maybe it's not, it's not like a standalone project the way it is right now where we like know the L1sand we like talk about them as these full on products, even though they're really still kind of supposed to be the foundation for all these other things. Yeah. So I think this sort of brings us to the end of this recording this episode. And I think I've already said it, but it's been a really fantastic three years. I have made an executive decision as the now sole runner of the podcast with the ZK podcast that I want to take for the first time in three years, a week off of the podcast, which means

Fredrik (50:46):
Well earned!

Anna (50:48):
Next week, which is the beginning of January, there will be nosy or knowledge podcast, but that does not mean it's not coming back. But I do think that, I don't know if I've already said this, but it's like year 1 to year 2 was us figuring out what the hell this thing was like the podcast and focusing mostly on blockchain. Then it was zero knowledge, proof research. And then this past year has been zero knowledge proof application. And it wasn't necessarily planned out that way, but that's how it landed and going forward. I want to spend some time and that's actually what I'm going to be doing over the next few weeks is I want to spend some time thinking about where does the curiosity and this sort of like line of thinking go, what kind of topics have we not had a chance to really dig into?

Anna (51:31):
Where are, you know, new kind of questions that mostly that just get me inspired and make me want to meet the people that are doing these things. So that's what I'm going to be spending some time on. And I'm very excited to have, you know, to have actually in a way expanded the zero knowledge community. Also with a lot of the guests hosts, I believe you'll be hearing more from them in the new year as well. And so stay tuned. See it in a couple of weeks. I'm quite excited for this little, little mini break. And I dunno if there's anything else, I guess it's just I can't believe we've made it through this year and here's hope in the next year is for a lot of people, a lot more fun, a lot easier. And for the folks that had a good year, hope you keep on going. The bull run won't last forever, but enjoy it while you, while you do, Or maybe it does last forever. Who knows?

Fredrik (52:30):
Yeah. Maybe, probably not. Maybe.

Anna (52:34):
All right. Thank you again, Fredrik

Fredrik (52:37):
And to our listeners. Thanks for three years of listening.

Intro (52:41):
Thanks for listening.