Research & References
This section contains the research that zkCoins is built on — primary sources, protocol analysis, community discussion, and upstream code references.
Primary Source
The Shielded CSV protocol paper is the foundation of everything:
- Paper: Shielded CSV: Private and Efficient Client-Side Validation (ePrint 2025/068)
- Authors: Jonas Nick (Blockstream), Liam Eagen (Alpen Labs), Robin Linus (ZeroSync)
- Published: January 2025
- PDF: GitHub Release
Upstream Repositories
Our server code is derived from the ZeroSync prototype. These are the original repositories:
| Repository | Description | Status |
|---|---|---|
| ShieldedCSV/ShieldedCSV | Paper reference code (Rust). PCD Compliance Predicate, types, node logic. All crypto primitives are unimplemented!() — it's a specification in Rust form. | 44 stars, MIT, inactive since Sep 2024 |
| ZeroSync/ZKCoins | Functional prototype — the codebase our server is derived from. SP1 zkVM proofs, Taproot Inscriptions, WASM client, Axum server. | Active (last update Apr 2026) |
| ZeroSync/rust-bitcoincore-rpc | Fork of rust-bitcoincore-rpc with submitpackage RPC updates for ZKCoins integration. | Tooling |
| BitVM/zkCoins | Historical Plonky2 recursive circuit experiments. Predecessor to the ZeroSync implementation. Last commit: "Recursive proving kinda works" (Feb 2024). | Archived |
Predecessor: zkCoins Gist
Before the formal paper, Robin Linus published the original concept as a GitHub Gist (2023):
zkCoins — RobinLinus/d036511015caea5a28514259a1bab119
Jonas Nick on the difference:
zkCoins represents "significant progress", but "the proposal does not describe the complete protocol and lacks some important details." Shielded CSV fills these gaps.
Subpages
- Protocol Analysis — Deep dive into the Shielded CSV protocol
- Authors & Ecosystem — Who built this, related projects
- Community Discussion — Bitcoin-Dev mailing list, talks, criticism
- Sources — Complete link collection (40+ references)
- Adoptable Elements — What zkCoins could learn from related protocols, mapped to roadmap gaps
Primary Sources (Full Text, Archived)
These are locally archived copies of key articles, stored as static files: