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The Future of Privacy: Understanding the Different Types of Zero-Knowledge Proofs
Blockchain Meets Privacy: Unleashing the Game-Changing Potential of Zero-Knowledge Proofs
If you don’t know what zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) are, I recommend you go through my article — Zero-Knowledge Proofs for Dummies. While that article skimmed the surface on what they are, the various use cases, and the drawbacks, in this article, I want to expand on the differences between the major implementations of zero-knowledge proofs. This article aims not to go in-depth from a technical, cryptographic perspective but more from an application level as it pertains to blockchain technologies in general.
Let’s first start with the basic types of ZKPs.
Interactive vs non-interactive zero-knowledge proofs
The two main types of zero-knowledge proofs are interactive and non-interactive. Interactive zero-knowledge proofs (IZKPs) require the prover and verifier to engage in a back-and-forth conversation in which the prover provides responses to the verifier’s queries. This interaction can be performed in person or over a network like the internet.
Non-interactive zero-knowledge proofs (NIZKPs), on the other hand, do not require any interaction between the prover and verifier. Instead…
