Generic zk-SNARKs (zk-snarks)
bofreq-lai-zk-snarks-03

Document Type Declined BOF request
Title Generic zk-SNARKs (zk-snarks)
Last updated 2025-06-25
State Declined
Editor Ying Tong Lai
Responsible leadership
Send notices to (None)
bofreq-lai-zk-snarks-03

Name: Generic zk-SNARKs

Description

Generic zk-SNARKs are being considered as a candidate solution for instantiating anonymous credentials in digital identity systems, such as the EUDI Wallet. In practice, zk-SNARK proof systems are highly modular, and can be modified for different deployment contexts and levels of assurance. Having standards for the core primitives of zk-SNARKs, and their safe composition, would allow for the instantiation of application-specific variants, without having to go through the full standardisation process each time. We seek to understand how the IETF community is using generic zk-SNARKs, and which approaches to standardisation may be useful for their applications.

Required Details

  • Status: not WG Forming
  • Responsible AD: Paul Wouters
  • BOF proponents: Ying Tong Lai <yingtong.lai@gmail.com>
  • Number of people expected to attend: 100
  • Length of session (1 or 2 hours): 2 hours
  • Conflicts (whole Areas and/or WGs)
  • Chair Conflicts: TBD
  • Technology Overlap: TBD
  • Key Participant Conflict: TBD

Information for IAB/IESG

Existing standards efforts for generic zk-SNARKs include:
- the ZKProof Standards working groups (zkproof.org), which are specifying the modular components of generic zk-SNARKs: arithmetisation, polynomial interactive oracle proofs, polynomial commitment schemes, and the Fiat-Shamir Heuristic;
- the libZK IETF draft by Google, which specifies the proof system described in their paper "Anonymous Credentials from ECDSA" [FS24];
- the EUDI's "Specification for ZKP Implementation in EUDI Wallet";
- the proponents have been working with the W3C Data Integrity CCG to discuss the use of generic zk-SNARKs as a data integrity proof for verifiable credentials.

Open source projects implementing anonymous credentials using generic zk-SNARKs:
- Crescent Credentials by Microsoft
- libZK by Google (no publicly available implementation as of 23 May 2025)
- ZKPassport
- Self by Celo
- Rarimo ZK Passport
- AnonAadhaar by Ethereum Foundation

Agenda

  • Note Well and Agenda Bashing (5 minutes)
  • Use Cases (25 minutes)
    • Anonymous Credentials in EUDI Wallet
    • Verifiable Credentials Data Integrity Proofs
  • Current standards work (40 minutes)
    • ZKProof Standards
    • W3C Data Integrity CCG
  • Open Mic - Feedback from the community (30 minutes)
  • Explore consensus and next steps (20 minutes)