Ripple CTO David Schwartz has sparked dialogue about zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs, predicting that the cryptographic development might deliver a significant shift within the blockchain area.
An X consumer claimed that personal ledgers have been technically unimaginable and never a part of XRP Ledger’s (XRPL) performance. One other X consumer responded with a 2019 tweet from Ripple CTO David Schwartz describing a imaginative and prescient of interconnected non-public ledgers: “For instance, think about 100 teams who need non-public ledgers for low-cost transactions within the group. They’ll every run non-public ledgers with actual XRP, however the place txn charges are a lot decrease. You may bridge to/from the general public XRP ledger as wanted.”
Weighing in on the revived thread, Schwartz shared new insights into how current developments, notably ZK proofs, might give life to this imaginative and prescient: “ZK proofs make this extra sensible and safe and let you come pretty near the safety and decentralization ensures of a layer one.” Schwartz added, “I’m not satisfied the use instances are right here but, however I believe they are going to be someday.”
ZK proofs make this extra sensible and safe and let you come pretty near the safety and decentralization ensures of a layer one. I am not satisfied the use instances are right here but, however I believe they are going to be someday.
— David ‘JoelKatz’ Schwartz (@JoelKatz) Could 9, 2025
Zero-knowledge proofs (ZK-proofs) are cryptographic protocols that permit one celebration to show a press release is true with out revealing any extra info, making them an efficient device for privacy-preserving transactions on blockchain. Schwartz’s remark means that ZK proofs might shut the hole between non-public transaction techniques and decentralized public chains.
ZK proofs: What’s coming?
In an April weblog submit titled “Why I assist privateness,” Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin indicated that AI is vastly growing capabilities for centralized information assortment and evaluation whereas vastly increasing the scope of knowledge shared voluntarily.
Buterin proposed options based mostly totally on zero-knowledge proofs (ZK-proofs) to privateness issues, as these permit for “fine-grained management of who can see what info.”
“We’ve got extra highly effective instruments to protect privateness, particularly within the digital realm, than the Nineties cypherpunks might have imagined: extremely environment friendly zero information proofs (ZK-SNARKs) can shield our identities whereas revealing sufficient info to show that we’re reliable, totally homomorphic encryption (FHE) can allow us to compute over information with out seeing the information, and obfuscation could quickly supply much more,” Buterin wrote.
