Zero-Knowledge Proofs Can Ensure Trust on Digital Space

Table of Contents

Overview

Cryptography techniques have established a level of trust on digital space that allows users to use our passwords without worrying about being stolen.

Although these existing trust primitives were extremely helpful, they have not yet been utilized well for broad use cases like demonstrating that data is being used as intended or that information came from a reliable source. Zero Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs), a cryptographic technique, are crucial for this reason.

ZKPs are prepared to have an influence on the internet after being utilized and promoted in cryptocurrencies for years. To put it simply, when you have a contract verified, you are receiving a seal of approval from a reputable authority that you can subsequently provide to other authorities as evidence that your deal is valid and should be carried out. In the digital world, a ZKP serves as the notary, and due to the nature of ZKPs, dishonesty is mathematically impossible.

Moreover, the advent of Web3 has a significant and beneficial influence on users since it enables them to own and control their own data. Nevertheless, without trust and agreement with its users, this transition toward a decentralized, user-controlled web cannot succeed fully. The potential to deliver such a scale is provided by zero knowledge proofs. Between computers and users, they may effectively transmit reliable information while maintaining some degree of privacy. In the end, ZKPs are most effectively used to provide privacy and verifiability, setting up the framework for a Web that is genuinely controlled by its users.

ZKPs Ensure the Digital Privacy

If your personal information is available on the internet, it can be permanently accessible to anyone who wants to use it. This opens an opportunity for bad people to manipulate the data and harm the users. For example, in 2020, 49 million people in the U.S experienced ID theft, resulting in approximately $13 billion in losses due to data breaches.

Therefore, users should ideally be able to communicate with these websites without disclosing any personal information. With Zero Knowledge Proofs, a business may use a user's data without ever gaining possession of it, safeguarding millions of users and keeping their data private.

Another illustration would be if you were applying for a mortgage while purchasing a home. The bank must have confidence in your ability to repay the loan before they would authorize it. This usually involves disclosing a ton of sensitive information about yourself, such as your credit score, banking history, outstanding debts, marital status, tax history, and the list goes on.

Your financial stability may be at risk, and you could become a target for other sorts of assaults if any of this very sensitive personal information fell into the wrong hands. Instead of taking that chance, you could just provide proof demonstrating your loan eligibility and your ability to repay the lender. This is where Zero Knowledge Proofs come into play.

ZKPs Ensure Verifiability

We have no clue where the content shown on websites nowadays comes from, whether it is real or fraudulent, created by a person, or increasingly created by artificial intelligence (AI). By using a ZKP, data and computational authenticity may be guaranteed.

Consider that you are communicating on a website. These additional users can be bots or they might be anyone from anywhere. It would be ideal if the platform understood that you are a real person and not a terrible actor, and if you knew this about the other users of the site as well.

In the real world, we use our passports, which are issued by our nation of citizenship, to prove who we are. A significant privacy danger would arise from carelessly implementing such a digital passport on the internet.

However, with zero knowledge proofs, individuals can offer private identity proofs that show they meet relevant requirements to use a platform, such as that they are a real person, haven't created more than three accounts on the website they are on, and haven't been banned in the last six months without disclosing any specifics of their identity or divulging any private information.

The combination of ZKP and Cryptocurrency to provide a user-owned and aligned platform

Web2 delivers an unsettling dynamic that is managed by centralized organizations. These organizations control their particular markets due to network effects, and frequently, their motivations clash with their ability to deliver beneficial public services. These platforms, which are made possible by users' combined efforts, should ideally be oriented toward users.

A new dynamic may be produced by the combination of cryptocurrencies and ZKPs. Now that user information is validated and kept private, it is feasible to create platforms that are collaboratively owned and governed thanks to decentralized platforms.

For example, massive quantities of centralized, private data must be kept by Meta (previously Facebook) in order for it to continue operating. It can assert alignment with its consumers as a private firm, but in reality, it cannot back up this assertion.

On the other hand, a social network based on cryptocurrencies and ZKPs would be capable of simultaneously possess transparency over its own rules and be able to provide proofs proving it is actually adhering to those rules, while allowing users to maintain privacy over their data and increase their trust of the service.

A Secure Digital Environment

ZKPs' ability to provide privacy, verifiability, and a user-controlled Web can provide users with the psychological security they require to be able to utilize a more influential digital environment successfully. These fundamental components are necessary if the internet is to successfully and healthily replace other interfaces as the primary means of conducting most of our daily lives.

Indeed, the effect and engagement of the internet will be much lower if there aren't any clear guidelines regarding how user data is utilized or a mechanism to confirm the accuracy of the information you're consuming.

Final Words

It is evident that zero-knowledge proofs are an integral part of the future internet. The use of zero-knowledge can provide users the level of trust they need to be able to interact with digital environments. Moreover, it allows users to no longer depend on centralized entities that can manipulate their personal data, instead, users are able to control their own data by participating in decentralized and trusted platforms. In the future, we may see more applications of zero-knowledge proofs as the cryptocurrency industry evolves.

About Orochi Network

Orochi Network is a cutting-edge zkOS (An operating system based on zero-knowledge proof) designed to tackle the challenges of computation limitation, data correctness, and data availability in the Web3 industry. With the well-rounded solutions for Web3 Applications, Orochi Network omits the current performance-related barriers and makes ways for more comprehensive dApps hence, becoming the backbone of Web3's infrastructure landscape.