Topics
Problems ZK-SNAP Is Built to Address
Short, spec-grounded pages — one URL per problem or protocol concept. Browse here, or start from Use Cases for the narrative version with cards and diagrams.
Topic group
Evidence gaps
Why platform-owned logs and exports fail as portable proof.
- Platform-Retained Records An account closes and the dashboard goes with it. The record of what happened lived inside the platform that just disappeared.
- Context That Does Not Travel A file is shared, exported, embedded in a report, and screenshot. By the time someone needs to verify what it shows, the original context is gone.
- Transformation Without Trail A dataset is copied, filtered, merged with another, and used to train three different systems. Months later it matters which exact version each system saw.
- Actions That Vanish An automated system approves, denies, and routes hundreds of decisions a day. Each decision is real. None of them produce a record an outsider can later check.
- Public Accountability Without Public Exposure Civic decisions move through private software, external vendors, and closed data systems. The public still has a right to verify them, without exposing every underlying document.
Topic group
Domains and workflows
Vertical problems where receipts must survive outside the original system.
- Creators and rights A model generates work that sounds like a real artist. The original sits in a training set the artist never approved. The artist needs to prove their version existed first, and under what terms.
- Content and media provenance An image is shared, downloaded, re-uploaded, and screenshot. Metadata is gone. A reviewer needs to know whether the visible image still matches the version that was originally signed.
- AI training and dataset audit A model passes audit. Months later, a flag turns up in its outputs. The team needs to prove which dataset version the model actually saw, and which transformation pipeline produced it.
- AI agents An agent executes a trade at 2am. The position is wrong. The system says it was within policy. Without a receipt the dashboard does not survive the dispute.
- Scientific and research workflows A paper is published. Years later, someone wants to reproduce the experiment from the original data. The portal that hosted it is gone. The exported dataset is the only artifact left.
- Public records and civic systems A public decision was made by an automated workflow inside a private vendor's system. The public has the right to verify it without seeing every underlying record.
- Privacy-chain settlement A regulator asks a settlement system to prove it executed correctly. The transaction details are private. The proof needs to be public.
- Robotics and industrial control A robot deviates from its approved operating envelope. Before liability is assigned, someone needs to prove what commands ran, under what safety policy, and when.
- Supply chain and infrastructure A production deployment goes wrong. The team rotates keys, switches vendors, and re-issues build attestations. Six months later an auditor needs to know what was actually running, when, and signed by whom.
- Off-Earth operations A spacecraft executes an autonomous maneuver hours from the nearest ground station. The receipt has to travel back with the telemetry, intact, weeks later.
Topic group
Protocol concepts
Spec-grounded pages for ZK-SNAP, chain recognition, Sigils, and governance.
- ZK-SNAP receipt A dashboard can say an action happened, but later reviewers need proof that survives outside the dashboard.
- ZK-AI Chain Local proof can show a receipt is valid, but it cannot by itself show that the receipt became publicly recognized at a specific point in protocol history.
- Evidence Graph People rarely return with the perfect receipt file; they return with copied content, an exported dataset, a time window, or an incident artifact.
- Depth-of-Trust A single badge hides which proof conditions have actually been satisfied.
- Sigils Public trust indicators drift when platforms award badges manually or use verified language loosely.
- Bridge artifacts Existing provenance and identity proofs can become disconnected badges if they do not travel with the receipt path.
- dePoD, GAS, and ZKAI A fake compute market can count activity that is not tied to accountable work.
- Protocol governance Proof infrastructure fails when one party can both mint receipts and rewrite the ledger rules that witness them.