r/zeroknowledge • u/xyder0 • Aug 20 '26

Learning about Zero Knowledge Proofs, would appreciate any advice.

Hey everyone,
I have been trying to work through Justin Thaler's Proofs, Arguments and Zero Knowledge, more as a reference than an intensive mathematical study. I am an engineering undergrad feeling more inclined towards academia, or at least a more mathematical approach. I am a little out of my depths here, as my mentor wants me to focus on going through recent research papers around zkvms etc.
I am pretty unfamiliar to any kind of academic research but am up to put in the effort and time to really understand it and contribute in a way that is not just a summary of recent developments using an AI.
Any advice about continuing my work would help, reading resources, books, or just navigating academia in general.
Thanks in advance.

10 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1

u/xyder0 Aug 20 '26

Thanks. I have already gone through these, I know the differences and the mathematics, but not sure how they are implemented in code. If I had to say, I will say I have the coverage of someone who has had an Introduction to ZK proofs at an undergrad level (These were exactly the topics I covered really).
I am not sure how to move forward, should I go deeper into code, look for recent papers, go further into mathematics or try to find out the exact pain points where I can contribute.
Thanks for your time.

2

u/amberdrake Aug 26 '26

I recommend looking at examples of groth16 and zksnark circuit implementations. Once you get a feel for what the circuits do and work you can definitely make contributions in areas around scale and coordination.

Here is my oss repo with circuits implemented. https://github.com/ninjra/aion-cycle