Getting into ZK can feel really overwhelming at first
You search one thing and suddenly there are 50 new terms you’ve never heard before and everyone somehow expects you to know all of them
I’ve been studying ZK for almost 2 years now and trust me I still have a really long way to go myself, barely scratched the surface if I’m being real
But here are some resources I found genuinely useful and would recommend if you’re trying to get into ZK
For people who prefer watching videos rather than instantly diving into books and papers
• ZK Whiteboard Sessions (absolute gold, taught by some of the best cryptographers/researchers in this space)
Season 1
youtube.com/playlist?list=PL…
Season 2
youtube.com/playlist?list=PL… qqSEpWQZ0Q&si=jZX1yVpXOMQqvgQZ
Season 3
youtube.com/playlist?list=PL…
These are genuinely some of the best videos you’ll find if you actually want to understand how things work under the hood
• ZKP MOOC playlist
Another really informative playlist that covers many essential concepts in a structured way
youtube.com/playlist?list=PL…
• KoalateeCtrl’s yt channel
Recently came across his channel and it caught me by surprise
Has some genuinely good videos around ZK maths, zkSNARKs, pairings, Fiat-Shamir, Plonkish arithmetization and more
youtube.com/playlist?list=PL…
• David Wong’s PLONK videos
Probably one of the best resources for understanding PLONK and his channel also has a lot of cool cryptography and ZK content
youtube.com/playlist?list=PL…
• MIT Advanced Cryptography lectures
Heavy maths but really worth checking out if you want deeper understanding of concepts like interactive proofs, sumcheck, GKR, Fiat-Shamir and more
I haven’t even gone through all the lectures myself, gave up midway at one point and definitely need to revisit them
youtube.com/playlist?list=PL…
Also check out channels like ZK Hack, Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing, 0xPARC, yAudit, RISC Zero, Scroll, Aztec Network, Starknet Foundation, StarkWare, House of ZK, dev3pack
And lucky for you if you’re Chinese, y’all genuinely have some of the best detailed ZK explanation videos on YouTube
That’s mostly for videos
Now for books and online resources
• RareSkills ZK Book
rareskills.io/zk-book
This is honestly the best place to start if you’re a beginner
Their explanations are simplified enough that you’ll actually understand concepts instead of instantly getting overwhelmed
Probably where many people should start
• Proofs, Arguments, and Zero-Knowledge — Justin Thaler
share.google/ytsKSBVILWQT1Vi…
Best book out there for understanding ZK from fundamentals to deeper concepts
I also feel a lot of people find ZK hard because they jump straight into Groth16/PLONK without properly understanding interactive proofs, IOPs, PCPs etc first
This book builds those foundations really well
• MoonMath Manual to zkSNARKs
leastauthority.com/community…
Amazing for building strong foundations in zkSNARKs from first principles
Finite fields, elliptic curves, pairings, R1CS/QAP, Groth16 under the hood
Really useful if your goal is understanding papers and implementations deeply
• Awesome ZK repo
github.com/ventali/awesome-z…
Pretty nice curated repo with papers, tools, courses, libraries and a bunch of ZK related resources
If y’all also want the programming/building side of ZK
I’m dropping another post for that right after this