Episode notes
More recently, Sean Bowe announced project Tachyon: an ambitious initiative to scale ZK SNARKs (the technology enabling shielded transactions) to billions of users.
Time stamps:
00:01:19 - Sean Bowe's Work on Zcash and Hidden Inflation Bug Fix
00:01:36 - Introduction to Halo and Halo 2: Eliminating Trusted Setup
00:01:51 - Overview of Project Tachyon for Scaling ZK-SNARKs
00:02:43 - Zcash Price Pump and Dance Celebration
00:04:48 - Using Zcash for Encrypted Messages via Zashi Wallet
00:05:42 - Comparing Zcash Messaging to Signal
00:07:17 - Sean Bowe's Early Involvement in Zcash and Bitcoin
00:10:34 - Sean Bowe's Age and Start in Cryptography at 21
00:11:13 - Discovering Bitcoin in 2011 and Privacy Needs
00:13:42 - Contributing to BIP 39 with Slush and Trezor
00:14:19 - Realizing Bitcoin's Lack of Privacy
00:17:50 - Privacy vs. Deniability in Bitcoin and Banks
00:20:23 - Wasabi Wallet and CoinJoins Limitations
00:21:46 - Optional Privacy in Zcash and Wallet Defaults
00:23:16 - Viewer Question: Source of Sean Bowe's Smartness
00:24:47 - Viewer Question: Ideas from Scaling Bottlenecks
00:27:09 - Viewer Quote from Oscar Wilde on Privacy
00:28:07 - Viewer Question: Zcash Network State Meaning
00:30:00 - Viewer Question: Timeline for Tachyon Success
00:33:15 - Chronological Approach to Interview and Tachyon
00:37:33 - Differences Between Zerocoin (Firo) and Zerocash (Zcash)
00:39:55 - Greg Maxwell's CoinJoin and Zerocoin Views
00:42:57 - Moon Math and Cryptographic Assumptions
00:46:33 - Sponsor: Citrea ZK Rollup with BitVM
00:47:19 - Sponsor: Layer2 Labs ZSide Drive Chain
00:49:01 - Sponsor: Bitcoin.com News
00:50:16 - Zcash Leads Crypto Rally News
00:58:49 - Bitcoin's Constraints and Creativity like BitVM
01:05:00 - Zcash Contributors and Zebra Rust Node
01:14:00 - Friendly Forks in Zcash
01:31:00 - Monero Hater Comments and Zcash Anonymity
02:23:00 - Superhero Backstory Tease
02:26:14 - Bitcoin Talk Username and Early ASIC Mining
02:28:35 - Pessimism on Bitcoin Development Speed
02:50:41 - Shielded Zcash Dust Problem
02:52:11 - Quantum Resistance and Self-Transfers
02:53:00 - Long-Term Storage Pool for Quantum Safety
02:54:56 - Avalanche Pre-Consensus like eCash
02:55:04 - Tachyon and Oblivious Synchronization
02:58:56 - Scaling to Billions: Math and No Bottlenecks
03:02:12 - Solving Privacy-Scaling Trilemma
03:04:51 - Off-Chain Secrets and Payment Protocols
03:06:24 - Tachyon as New Privacy Pool
03:12:56 - Wallet Syncing with Tachyon Servers
03:14:50 - Shielded Aggregation in Tachyon
03:17:00 - Tachyon Team Size and Hiring Rust Engineers
03:18:41 - ETA for Tachyon: Next Year
03:23:15 - Greg Maxwell Paper Citation Story
03:25:11 - Explaining ZK-SNARKs to Polkadot Cryptographers
03:31:01 - Zcash Governance and No Benevolent Dictator
03:35:06 - Memos Bloating Blockchain and Anonymity Boost
03:38:06 - Zcash Compatibility with Bitcoin Privacy
03:39:01 - Following Sean Bowe: X Account and Blog