The zkMarek YouTube channel began with a clear vision. With the Ethereum ecosystem buzzing about modern cryptography, we wanted to make a complex subject more fun and explain it through stunning visuals! Back in October 2023, we released our first episode, and now that the first season is coming to an end, it's time for a recap!
The first season follows a learning path through the foundations of Ethereum cryptography. We began with the fundamentals of elliptic curves in our debut episode to show in practice how to build an Ethereum wallet from scratch, with pure math. This foundation allowed us to explore how transactions are secured using the ECDSA algorithm in the following episode.
As the season progressed, we tackled more advanced concepts like trusted setups and pairing operations, which eventually led us to exploring polynomial commitments through the KZG scheme – an important component to understand more complex topics associated with zero-knowledge proofs. To demonstrate how these theoretical concepts can be applied to the real-world, we recently published an episode on Ethereum blobs, which use KZG to solve the L1 scaling problem. The season will conclude with two final episodes. First, an exploration of Merkle Trees, the cornerstone building block of Ethereum's data structure. Second, their future successor, Verkle Trees.
To complement our main storyline, we've created three shorter videos to highlight key concepts “in a nutshell”. These include a fresh perspective on the fascinating point at infinity in elliptic curves, and two intuitive breakdowns focused on the Digital Signature Algorithm and the Vector Commitments. These shorts serve as perfect entry points for newcomers.
In our first season, the channel has grown to 500+ subscribers – pretty solid for niche cryptography content! We've reached almost 6,000 total views, with viewers spending an impressive 280 hours watching our content. Behind these numbers are real conversations with you. We truly enjoy reading your comments, and here are some of our favorites. Thank you for being a part of zkMarek!
We believe strongly in the open source philosophy, especially in the context of cryptography. All our animation code is publicly available, allowing the community to learn not just from our explanations, but also create their own videos. We hope this will help to build a stronger and more knowledgeable builders’ ecosystem.
You might be wondering how these animations come to life. Let us pull back the curtain a bit – each episode you watch represents about two months of hard work. Although the journey to get here has evolved quite a bit!
When we first started, it was just Marek wearing all the hats – researching, scripting, coding animations, and of course, being the voice you've gotten to know. As the channel grew, so did our team! Marta joined us and has taken charge of bringing our explanations to life through code, crafting animations using the Manim Python framework. Meanwhile, Maciek has focused on ensuring our content stays technically rigorous while remaining accessible – because let's face it, cryptography is complex enough without making it more complicated than it needs to be! Don't worry though - the voice walking you through all those moon math landscapes is still the one and only zkMarek!
We're at a crossroads for our next season and considering two exciting paths: 1. Multi-Party Computation (MPC), or 2. Finishing our deep dive into PLONK. We’re building for you and we'd love to hear your preference in the comments to help guide our future content.
Our work wouldn't be possible without the support of the Ethereum Ecosystem Support Program and vlayer Labs. Their backing has enabled us to maintain our quality throughout the season.
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