zk

ZKsync's official announcement stated that following several ZK token governance proposals, the governance service provider ScopeLift has now launched the "ZK Fee Flow System" proposal on the forum. This system is a set of smart contract mechanisms that allow ZKsync Governance to route and allocate protocol revenue and fees through its controllable on-chain mechanisms. ZKsync indicated that the relevant forum post has detailed the contract architecture, operational mechanisms, security measures, and deployment addresses of the system.

According to token unlocking data from the Crypto asset data platform RootData, zkPass (ZKP) will unlock approximately 16.62 million tokens at 11:00 AM Beijing time on May 19, worth about 1.39 million USD.

On May 10, Vitalik Buterin published a research article advocating that cryptocurrency payments need to shift from pseudonymity to default privacy, proposing the use of zero-knowledge proof (ZK) transactions to replace standard transfers, allowing users to prove payment validity without exposing their full balance or transaction history.Vitalik specifically pointed out that in the era of agents, autonomous AI agents need to pay service fees (such as LLM API fees) without leaving traceable footprints. By using recursive SNARKs and ZK APIs for points, Ethereum Layer 2 can handle privacy payments at the same speed and cost as transparent transactions. The proposal also includes selective disclosure and proof of innocence mechanisms, allowing users to provide specific proofs to compliance agencies or tax authorities without disclosing data to the public, in response to anti-money laundering regulatory requirements.Vitalik believes that the public transparency of blockchain is the main obstacle preventing cryptocurrency payments from replacing traditional payments, and the ZK payment standard aims to make privacy a default feature.

According to token unlocking data from the Crypto asset data platform RootData, zkSync (ZK) will unlock approximately 173.14 million tokens at 0:00 on May 17, Beijing time, worth about 3.23 million USD.

The Ethereum Foundation has announced the list of grants and ecosystem support projects for the first quarter of 2026, focusing on cryptography, zero-knowledge proofs (ZK), protocol security, and core infrastructure development, continuously strengthening the Ethereum underlying technology stack and long-term scalability.This quarter's funding covers several key areas. At the protocol and client level, projects include optimizations for the Geth and Erigon clients, upgrades to the Lighthouse client, and the development of network monitoring tools after the Pectra upgrade, with a focus on improving network performance and attack resistance. Additionally, projects such as HSM key management, the validator security tool Vero, and the DISC-NG node discovery mechanism have also received support to enhance node-level reliability and institutional compliance capabilities.In the areas of cryptography and ZK, the foundation continues to invest in projects such as the analysis of the Poseidon hash function, research on Gröbner basis attacks, exploration of quantum-resistant and homomorphic mixed encryption, and formal verification of RISC-V zkVM, further strengthening the security boundaries of zero-knowledge proofs and cryptographic infrastructure.In terms of the developer ecosystem, the BuidlGuidl education system upgrade, ERC standard community building, WalletConnect clear signature library, and Open Creator Rails toolchain are continuously advancing to lower development barriers and enhance user interaction security. Meanwhile, L2BEAT continues to provide transparency analysis for Layer 2, strengthening the data infrastructure for scaling ecosystems.Furthermore, the foundation supports privacy technologies (such as Tor integration and Privacy Pool SDK), decentralized identity (did:ethr standard upgrade), DAO governance research, and public goods experimental projects, covering a complete ecological structure from the protocol layer to the application layer. Overall, this round of funding continues Ethereum's long-term investment in the three core directions of "cryptography + ZK + protocol engineering," emphasizing the support for future multi-layer scaling and institutional-level application implementation through infrastructure and standardization development.

According to Arkham monitoring, the zkPass team's multi-signature address (0xEF1) transferred a total of 10,000,000 ZKP to Binance in the past 30 minutes, worth approximately $796,100.Currently, the circulating supply of ZKP is 268 million, and this distribution amount accounts for about 3.73% of its total circulating supply. ZKP is currently priced at $0.07964, with a 24-hour decline of 7.35%, and its circulating market capitalization is currently $21.37 million.

ChainCatcher reports live from the 2026 Hong Kong Web3 Carnival, where Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin delivered a keynote speech. He defined Ethereum by two core functions: first, as a public bulletin board for applications to publish messages and data; second, as shared digital objects controlled by code, encompassing assets, NFTs, ENS, and DAOs. He emphasized that Ethereum's goal is not to compete with high-frequency trading platforms on speed, but to become the most secure, decentralized, and always-online trusted chain.Regarding the short-term roadmap, he introduced the account abstraction proposal EIP-8141, which natively supports smart contract wallets, quantum-resistant signature algorithms, and privacy protocols; in terms of quantum resistance, there are currently two signature schemes based on hash and lattice, and the team is significantly enhancing their efficiency through EVM vectorization.He revealed that ZKVM is fast enough to prove real-time EVM execution, with this year's goal being to ensure its security, planning to start deployment from a small proportion of the network, aiming to become the primary method of validation by 2028, allowing Ethereum to scale significantly without sacrificing decentralization. In terms of long-term vision, Ethereum is actively utilizing AI to generate mathematical proofs to formalize software security verification, pursuing complete quantum safety and maximum simplicity to ensure platform security does not rely on the continuous existence of any single team.

According to token unlocking data from the crypto asset data platform RootData, zkPass (ZKP) will unlock approximately 16.62 million tokens at 11:00 AM Beijing time on April 19, worth about 1.15 million USD.

According to token unlock data from the Crypto asset data platform RootData, zkSync (ZK) will unlock approximately 173.14 million tokens at 0:00 on April 17, Beijing time, worth about 2.66 million USD.

According to The Block, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson announced the launch of the privacy-focused blockchain Midnight, which generated its genesis block on Monday.Midnight utilizes zero-knowledge proof technology (ZK), allowing users to selectively disclose or hide data while supporting compliance requirements. Its hybrid ledger can mix public and private data in a single transaction and supports shielded assets that hide balance and counterparty information. Midnight employs a dual-token model: the governance token NIGHT serves as a store of value for the ecosystem, and holders can earn a renewable Gas token DUST, which is generated proportionally to holdings and can be transferred to others for transaction fee payments. The network opened a one-year NIGHT airdrop to 37 million eligible wallets last December. Early node operators include Worldpay, Bullish, MoneyGram, Google Cloud, and others. Midnight achieves bidirectional asset interoperability with Cardano, and Cardano's staking pool operators can also run Midnight validation nodes.

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson announced the launch of the privacy-oriented sidechain Midnight, which has generated its genesis block, marking the official entry of the project into the operational phase.Midnight is developed by Input Output Global and is positioned as a "fourth-generation blockchain," aimed at driving real-world assets on-chain through end-to-end privacy capabilities. The network employs zero-knowledge proof (ZK) technology to achieve selective disclosure of data, meeting compliance requirements while protecting user privacy. Architecturally, Midnight has its own ledger, consensus mechanism, and smart contract environment, and connects with the Cardano ecosystem through interoperable design. Its hybrid ledger supports the simultaneous processing of public and private data within the same transaction and provides the ability to conceal balance and counterparty information. Additionally, Midnight introduces a programming language called Compact, lowering the barrier for developers to build privacy applications, and adopts a dual-token model to optimize network usage costs and incentive mechanisms.

BitGo announced a partnership with ZKsync to launch a production-ready tokenized deposit solution, providing secure custody, privacy, and compliant blockchain settlement designed specifically for banks.Tokenized deposits will enable always-online settlement and programmable cash flow while keeping funds within the banking system and complying with existing regulatory frameworks.

ZKsync announced a collaboration with five regional banks in the United States to develop a tokenized deposit network called Cari Network. This network is built on Matter Labs' Prividium platform, utilizing privacy-preserving permissioned blockchain infrastructure. The partner banks include Huntington Bank, First Horizon, M&T Bank, KeyBank, and Old National.Cari Network is positioned as a secure, private, and regulatory-compliant infrastructure, with tokenized deposits existing directly as bank liabilities and qualifying for FDIC insurance. It aims to connect the $8.3 trillion in assets held by regional banks to the blockchain, providing around-the-clock programmable digital currency services.

According to the token unlock data from the crypto asset data platform RootData, zkPass (ZKP) will unlock approximately 16.62 million tokens on March 19 at 11:00 AM Beijing time, worth about 1.4 million USD.

According to the token unlock data from the Crypto asset data platform RootData, zkSync (ZK) will unlock approximately 17.314 million tokens at 00:00 Beijing time on March 17, worth about 3.33 million USD.

According to The Block, a16z Crypto criticized the colloquial use of the term "ZK" in certain developer environments in a blog post about its Jolt zkVM. The article pointed out that most zkVMs do not actually possess zero-knowledge properties unless expensive "wrapping" programs are applied. The author also mentioned that "zk" often becomes synonymous with "conciseness," meaning "short proofs that verify quickly," rather than true zero-knowledge privacy.As the community's focus on privacy grows, the misuse of this terminology is becoming a real issue. a16z's open-source Jolt zkVM launched a major upgrade on Tuesday, natively supporting zero-knowledge proofs. Jolt employs the NovaBlindFold folding scheme to create blinded proofs to prevent information leakage, making it suitable for privacy applications, with the zero-knowledge proofs generated after the upgrade only increasing by about 3 KB compared to the original non-ZK proofs.

Lido officially stated that there is a potential vulnerability in the ZKsync wstETH bridging endpoint contract. There are currently no signs that this vulnerability has been exploited, and wstETH holders on ZKsync are not affected. Other bridging contracts are not impacted.As a precaution, Lido has paused new deposits to the ZKsync bridging contract, while withdrawals from zkSync and token transfers are unaffected. Lido has prepared a fix that will be audited and deployed during the next scheduled on-chain Lido governance comprehensive vote (late March/early April), after which the deposit functionality will be restored. Further updates will be released as necessary.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin posted on the X platform that Ethereum's scalability is divided into short-term and long-term parts.In the short term, the Glamsterdam upgrade will introduce block-level access lists for parallel validation, ePBS will allow a larger proportion of time slots for block validation, and gas repricing will ensure that operational costs align with actual execution time.The multi-dimensional gas mechanism will be implemented in phases, starting with Glamsterdam, where the "state creation" cost will be separated from the "execution and calldata" cost, with state creation gas not counted towards the approximately 16 million transaction gas limit. The EVM level will introduce a "reservoir" dimension mechanism, which will prioritize the consumption of dedicated dimension gas by default, and when insufficient, will draw from the reservoir. This will eventually transition to multi-dimensional pricing, where different dimensions may have different floating gas prices.Long-term scalability includes ZK-EVM and blob components. In terms of blobs, there are plans to continuously iterate PeerDAS, aiming to achieve approximately 8MB of data processing capacity per second, with future Ethereum block data directly entering blobs.The ZK-EVM aspect will be implemented in phases: by 2026, there will be a validator client supporting ZK-EVM, allowing about 5% of the network to rely on it; by 2027, this will expand to a larger proportion of a few nodes while advancing formal verification; once conditions are mature, it will transition to a five-out-of-three mandatory proof mechanism, ultimately continuously enhancing the security and formal verification level of ZK-EVM, and involving changes to VMs such as RISC-V.

According to The Block, the Ethereum Layer 2 project ZKsync has announced that it will officially discontinue ZKsync Lite (formerly ZKsync 1) on May 4, 2026. At that time, the network will stop producing blocks and permanently freeze the final state to ensure that balances cannot be changed after the shutdown. The team stated that this move is a "orderly planned exit" and will not affect ZKsync Era or other chains built on the ZK Stack.After Lite is shut down, the official will maintain a read-only API for at least one year to support historical data queries. Users are advised to proactively withdraw assets before the deadline for convenience, but unwithdrawn funds can still be claimed later. Data shows that there are currently about $33.9 million in assets bridged on ZKsync Lite, including approximately $24.9 million in stablecoins, $8.4 million in ETH and its derivatives, $313,000 in BTC and its derivatives, and about $231,000 in other assets.ZKsync Lite was launched in June 2020 and is regarded as the first zero-knowledge Rollup on Ethereum, supporting token transfers, atomic swaps, and NFT minting, but lacking smart contract functionality. In March 2023, the developer Matter Labs stopped development on Lite after launching Era, shifting focus to support the zkEVM system for general smart contracts.

According to token unlock data from the crypto asset data platform RootData, zkPass (ZKP) will unlock approximately 16.62 million tokens on February 19 at 11:00 AM Beijing time, worth about 1.52 million USD.