Kusama ZK Bounty: Q1 Report
Please visit and bookmark, https://zk.kusama.vision/ where you will also find a link to the public codeberg repo
Also the element channel, https://matrix.to/#/#kusama-zk:virto.community
In the beginning, Kusama was conceived as Web3’s canary network, a chaotic testing ground to push technological boundaries without constraints. Over the past quarter, the Web3 Foundation and the Kusama ZK Bounty Curators have been laying the groundwork to revive this foundational ethos.
Backed by a vision to utilise 10 million DOT over the next two years, our goal is simple: make Kusama the undisputed home for developers pushing the bleeding edge of Zero-Knowledge (ZK) innovation. No promises. Expect chaos.
Here is an update on the ZK bounty and what the curator team has built this quarter, our funding philosophy, and how you can get involved.
Quarterly Progress & Milestones
The curator team (Daniel, Reza, Filip and Jordan) has spent this quarter operationalising the bounty, debating technical directions, and building the infrastructure needed to fund the next generation of privacy tools.
Infrastructure & Setup: We launched our official website at zk.kusama.vision to serve as the hub for our mission.
Bounty Pallet & Multisig: We have been working closely with the Web3 Foundation and Parity teams to finalize the runtime upgrades, set up the curator multisig, and prepare the bounty pallet for live funding.
RFP Generation: We are hoping that people will apply with exciting proposals, in the meantime we shifted our focus from waiting to actively directing the ecosystem through highly targeted Requests for Proposals (RFPs) which can be found via the website.
Scoping the Future: We evaluated massive, large proposals (like Space & Time’s) and in the process decided to refine our grant philosophy to prioritise lean, highly-scoped Proof of Concepts (POCs) over large initial funding rounds.
The North Star: RFP#000 - KryptOS (Total Privacy Operating System)
Blockchain consensus without privacy is simply surveillance. To combat this, we have developed our Meta-RFP: KryptOS.
KryptOS is a vision for a global Privacy Operating System, a unified protocol stack and tooling layer that sits between users and the decentralized internet. We want to make privacy the default, leveraging zero-knowledge cryptography to enforce mathematical trust over institutional trust.
To build KryptOS, we are actively seeking teams to develop:
Unified Privacy Application SDKs: A framework allowing developers to write secure client-side logic, ZK circuits, and on-chain state management within a single codebase (like Rust).
Decentralized Private Data Stores: Encrypted storage solutions utilizing ZK to enforce complex private access control policies.
Private Communications: Protocols allowing users to anonymously collaborate and communicate in near real-time without leaking identifying metadata.
Private Finance & Payments: Infrastructure to enable private transactions on Kusama, including shielded pools, stealth addresses, and private stablecoin transfers. We are also highly interested in mechanisms for private tokenization (like private NFTs, owning Stocks privately) and generating private yield on locked assets.
Wildcards & Missing Layers: KryptOS is a living document, and this list is not exhaustive. If you identify a missing capability such as private AI inference, anonymous networking, or a completely unmapped ZK use case we want to hear it. We actively encourage wildcard submissions; if you have a bold idea, open an issue, propose a new component, and submit your proposal.
RFPs actively developing
Beyond KryptOS, the curators are drafting specific RFPs aimed at solving immediate ecosystem needs. We are actively looking for builders to tackle:
BN254 Curve Support: Improving the developer experience for integrating the existing BN254 precompile to make ZK circuits more efficient on Asset Hub.
ZK Email Protocols: Bringing verifiable email to Kusama to enable use cases like account recovery and anonymous verifications.
Privacy-Preserving Federated Learning: Utilizing ZKPs to verify the evaluation of aggregated global AI models without sharing the underlying data.
ZK Shopping & Private Commerce: Building decentralized architectures where consumers can anonymously compare and verify prices.
Our Funding Philosophy: Lean, Mean, and Verifiable
We are not here to hand out massive grants to projects that don’t immediately benefit the Kusama ecosystem. After reviewing recent large-scale proposals, the curator set has aligned on a strict funding philosophy.
Start Small: We prefer funding highly scoped Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) and $10k–$20k Proof of Concepts to test technical delivery and code quality.
Avoid Bloat: We actively reject projects that rely heavily on bloated, LLM-generated codebases or require immediate parachain setups that demand heavy long-term maintenance.
Prove Product-Market Fit: We want to see actual user adoption and demand. We are building for average users outside the crypto bubble, not just for niche academic exercises.
Acknowledgments & Ecosystem Collaboration
Building this foundation is a massive team effort, and we want to extend a huge shoutout to those who have helped us navigate this quarter:
Eric Holst: A massive thank you to Eric for his relentless support. From organizing our operations and coordinating with the Web3 Foundation on treasury management to keeping our chaotic meetings on track, his help has been invaluable.
Web3 Foundation Advisors: Special thanks to our technical advisors, Andrew Burger and Jeffrey Burdges. Their rigorous feedback, deep cryptographic expertise, and healthy skepticism of overhyped tech have been critical in shaping our RFPs and grounding our funding philosophy.
The Art & POP Bounties: Finally, a nod to our fellow Kusama visionaries in the Art and Proof of Personhood (POP) bounties. We are actively exploring shared infrastructure and cross-bounty funding to ensure a collaborative, unified push for the entire Kusama ecosystem.
Call to Action: Help Us ZK-fy the World
We are at an inflection point. The RFPs are live, the vision is set, and the funding is waiting. But we cannot do this in a vacuum. We need the Kusama and Polkadot communities’ input. So please
Review and Critique: Visit our public repositories and review our RFPs. Tell us where we are wrong, what we are missing, and how to improve.
Propose New Layers: If you see a gap in the KryptOS vision, open an issue or propose a new component.
Apply to Build: If you have the technical chops to bring these ZK primitives to life, submit a proposal.
Let’s return Kusama to its roots. Let’s build the unshackled, private, and chaotic future of Web3.