zBlock1

In June 2023, we conducted a Zero Knowledge Auditing cohort that kicked off with foundational concepts in complexity theory and Zero Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs). Participants engaged in hands-on exercises with Circom, a tool for creating ZKP circuits, to deepen their understanding.

The cohort's first audit project was the Rate Limiting Nullifier (RLN) by the Privacy & Scaling Explorations group of the EF. The Rate Limiting Nullifier project is a zk-library/protocol designed to prevent spam in permissionless environments while preserving user anonymity. This audit took 15 days to complete.

Following a retreat session, we proceeded to audit Spartan ECDSA's codebase, a library for proving and verifying ECDSA (secp256k1) signatures in zero-knowledge. This audit spanned 16 days. Both RLN and Spartan ECDSA utilized Circom circuits.

During the cohort, fellows also developed new Circom tooling and enhanced the usability of existing tools by improving the documentation and code for projects like Picus and Ecne. At the end of the audit, outstanding fellows were awarded for their exceptional contributions and performance throughout the cohort.