Vitalik Buterin, one of the co-founders of Ethereum, has expressed his support for the announcement made by X engineer Haofei on Farcaster, a decentralized social media platform. Haofei revealed that X will be making “Likes” private.
On May 20, Buterin expanded on this idea and suggested that Farcaster should implement zero-knowledge (ZK) likes to address the issue of preference falsification. Preference falsification refers to the distortion of true preferences due to social pressure or fear.
ZK technology is a cryptography technique that ensures privacy by allowing one party to prove a statement’s truthfulness without revealing any confidential information. When applied to likes, ZK technology would enable someone to prove that they liked a post without disclosing their identity.
Buterin proposed the adoption of ZK technology from Zupoll, a tool used in the Zuzalu concept, a pop-up city initiative that Buterin initiated. Zupoll is designed for anonymous voting and decision-making in a decentralized and cryptographic manner.
Buterin’s suggestion to utilize ZK technology aligns with Farcaster’s core principles, which include user privacy, censorship resistance, autonomy, and differentiation from centralized social media platforms.
Addressing rumors that X might hide users’ likes by default, Haofei confirmed that the platform would indeed make likes private. Haofei explained that users would soon be able to like posts without worrying about who might see it. Additionally, he emphasized that the more posts users like, the better the algorithm will become for them.
The community’s response to this news was mixed. Some users suggested extending this concept beyond likes and applying it to the “following” feature as well. However, high-profile accounts like Wall Street Silver expressed a contrasting opinion.
In addition to his work in the field of ZK cryptography, Buterin has also recently proposed solutions to mitigate the miner extracted value (MEV) problem. MEV strategies allow validators to profit by optimizing the order of transactions within a block to exploit arbitrage opportunities. However, this practice leads to network congestion, increased trader slippage requirements, and higher gas fees. Buterin suggested implementing MEV minimization quarantine techniques, using inclusions lists, and reducing the requirements to run a node to address these issues.
In other news, Daan Crypto Trades, an expert in the field, predicts that if Bitcoin’s value doubles, Stacks will experience a fourfold increase in 2025. Stacks is a cryptocurrency platform.
Overall, Buterin’s support for the implementation of ZK likes on Farcaster and his proposals to address the MEV problem demonstrate his commitment to advancing privacy, decentralization, and innovative solutions in the blockchain industry.