Stanford Blockchain Week went down from August 26th to September 1st, featuring a bunch of blockchain-related gatherings. This article breaks down three cool things that happened during the week and what they mean for the blockchain world. Trend 1: Leveling Up Zero-Knowledge Proofs**No surprise here, but lots of talks at the conferences were all about Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs). At the Stanford Blockchain Conference (SBC), folks were diving deep into making existing ZKP solutions better. They even geeked out about nifty things like super-efficient folding schemes (think HyperNova and Protostar). Plus, startups showed off some neat ways to use ZKPs, like verifying computations and keeping transactions private. What's interesting is that ZKP is getting specialized, with companies focusing on different parts of ZK processes. It's like ZKPs are growing up! Trend 2: Mixing and Matching with Modularity**Modularity was a big buzzword. Companies are all about handling specific tasks within the blockchain tech stack to make things more mix-and-matchable. For instance, the Arbitrum project's Stylus is trying to blend the worlds of EVM and WASM code execution to let smart contracts and WASM code play nicely together. This makes it easier for new devs to jump in and lets everyone build their tech stack their way. Trend 3: Giving Bitcoin Some Love**Surprisingly, there was some serious love for Bitcoin. People are getting interested in Bitcoin all over again, from developers to tech to culture. Some projects are even trying to bring a bit of Ethereum's style into the Bitcoin world, which could bring some fresh energy to Bitcoin.In a nutshell, Stanford Blockchain Week showed how diverse and lively the blockchain scene is. All sorts of cool research and ideas are driving the industry toward a brighter, more decentralized future.
