<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0"><channel><title>ZK Cryptographer Blog</title><description>Zero-knowledge proofs, applied cryptography, and the math behind them — explained without the hand-waving.</description><link>https://zkcryptographer.example/</link><language>en-us</language><item><title>What Zero-Knowledge Proofs Actually Prove</title><link>https://zkcryptographer.example/blog/what-zero-knowledge-proofs-actually-prove/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://zkcryptographer.example/blog/what-zero-knowledge-proofs-actually-prove/</guid><description>A plain-language walkthrough of completeness, soundness, and zero-knowledge — the three properties every ZK protocol has to satisfy, with no hand-waving.</description><pubDate>Fri, 02 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><category>Zero-Knowledge</category></item><item><title>Modular Arithmetic: The Clock Math Behind Every ZK Circuit</title><link>https://zkcryptographer.example/blog/modular-arithmetic-clock-math/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://zkcryptographer.example/blog/modular-arithmetic-clock-math/</guid><description>Why every cryptographic protocol you&apos;ll ever touch secretly runs on clock arithmetic, and how to build the intuition that makes it click.</description><pubDate>Mon, 28 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><category>Math</category></item><item><title>Hash Functions, Demystified</title><link>https://zkcryptographer.example/blog/hash-functions-demystified/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://zkcryptographer.example/blog/hash-functions-demystified/</guid><description>SHA-256, Poseidon, and why ZK-friendly hashing is a different design problem entirely — a tour of what makes a hash function &apos;circuit-friendly.&apos;</description><pubDate>Thu, 24 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><category>Cryptography</category></item><item><title>Debugging a Circuit That Won&apos;t Verify</title><link>https://zkcryptographer.example/blog/debugging-a-circuit-that-wont-verify/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://zkcryptographer.example/blog/debugging-a-circuit-that-wont-verify/</guid><description>A field guide to the most common reasons a correct-looking circuit fails verification, from witness mismatches to constraint typos.</description><pubDate>Sat, 19 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><category>ZK Development</category></item><item><title>Groth16 vs PLONK vs STARKs: Choosing a Proving System in 2026</title><link>https://zkcryptographer.example/blog/groth16-vs-plonk-vs-starks/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://zkcryptographer.example/blog/groth16-vs-plonk-vs-starks/</guid><description>Proof size, prover time, trusted setup requirements, and tooling maturity compared head-to-head for teams shipping production ZK today.</description><pubDate>Mon, 14 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><category>ZK Development</category></item><item><title>Trusted Setups, Explained Without the Hand-Waving</title><link>https://zkcryptographer.example/blog/trusted-setups-explained/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://zkcryptographer.example/blog/trusted-setups-explained/</guid><description>What a ceremony actually produces, why it matters, and how transparent setups like STARKs sidestep the problem entirely.</description><pubDate>Wed, 09 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><category>Zero-Knowledge</category></item><item><title>Lattice-Based Cryptography: A Gentle On-Ramp</title><link>https://zkcryptographer.example/blog/lattice-based-cryptography-gentle-on-ramp/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://zkcryptographer.example/blog/lattice-based-cryptography-gentle-on-ramp/</guid><description>The shortest-vector problem, why quantum computers don&apos;t break it, and how lattices are becoming the backbone of post-quantum standards.</description><pubDate>Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><category>Post-Quantum Cryptography</category></item><item><title>This Month in ZK: Ecosystem Roundup</title><link>https://zkcryptographer.example/blog/this-month-in-zk-ecosystem-roundup/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://zkcryptographer.example/blog/this-month-in-zk-ecosystem-roundup/</guid><description>New proving system releases, protocol upgrades, and the research papers worth your weekend reading time.</description><pubDate>Sun, 30 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><category>News/Ecosystem</category></item><item><title>Formally Verifying a zkSNARK Circuit, Step by Step</title><link>https://zkcryptographer.example/blog/formally-verifying-a-zksnark-circuit/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://zkcryptographer.example/blog/formally-verifying-a-zksnark-circuit/</guid><description>Using proof assistants to mechanically check that a circuit&apos;s constraints really do encode the statement you think they encode.</description><pubDate>Tue, 25 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><category>Formal Verification</category></item><item><title>Elliptic Curves Without the Trauma</title><link>https://zkcryptographer.example/blog/elliptic-curves-without-the-trauma/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://zkcryptographer.example/blog/elliptic-curves-without-the-trauma/</guid><description>Point addition, scalar multiplication, and the discrete log problem — built up visually, one picture at a time.</description><pubDate>Thu, 20 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><category>Math</category></item><item><title>NIST&apos;s Post-Quantum Standards: What Changes for Developers</title><link>https://zkcryptographer.example/blog/nist-post-quantum-standards-what-changes/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://zkcryptographer.example/blog/nist-post-quantum-standards-what-changes/</guid><description>ML-KEM, ML-DSA, and SLH-DSA are now standardized — here&apos;s what migrating a real system actually involves.</description><pubDate>Sat, 15 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><category>Post-Quantum Cryptography</category></item><item><title>Why &apos;Formally Verified&apos; Doesn&apos;t Always Mean Bug-Free</title><link>https://zkcryptographer.example/blog/why-formally-verified-doesnt-mean-bug-free/</link><guid isPermaLink="true">https://zkcryptographer.example/blog/why-formally-verified-doesnt-mean-bug-free/</guid><description>A proof assistant checks your spec against your code — it can&apos;t check that your spec means what you think it means.</description><pubDate>Mon, 10 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT</pubDate><category>Formal Verification</category></item></channel></rss>