Exploring zkTLS Technology: Breaking the Web3 Data Silos

Recently, while exploring new project directions, I encountered a technology stack that I had not previously dealt with - zkTLS. After in-depth research, I have organized my learning insights as follows, hoping to share them with everyone.

zkTLS is an innovative technology that integrates zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP) and the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol. In the Web3 space, it is primarily used in on-chain virtual machine environments, enabling the verification of the authenticity of off-chain HTTPS data without the need to trust third parties. The authenticity here includes three aspects: the data source indeed comes from a specific HTTPS resource, the returned data is unaltered, and the timeliness of the data is guaranteed. Through this cryptographic implementation mechanism, zkTLS provides on-chain smart contracts with the ability to securely access off-chain Web2 HTTPS resources, thereby breaking down data silos.

Overview of TLS Protocol

To gain a deeper understanding of the value of zkTLS technology, it is necessary to briefly review the TLS protocol. TLS (Transport Layer Security) is used to provide encryption, authentication, and data integrity in network communications, ensuring secure data transmission between clients (such as browsers) and servers (such as websites).

The HTTPS protocol is essentially built on the HTTP protocol utilizing the TLS protocol, ensuring the privacy and integrity of information transmission, and allowing for the verifiability of the server's authenticity. In contrast, the HTTP protocol is a plaintext transmission network protocol and does not allow for the verification of the server's authenticity, which leads to several security issues:

1. Information may be intercepted by third parties, leading to privacy leakage;
2. Unable to verify the authenticity of the server-side; the request may be hijacked by malicious nodes and return malicious information.
3. Unable to verify the integrity of the returned information, which may result in data loss due to network issues.

The TLS protocol was designed to address these issues. It solves the above problems in the following ways:

1. Encrypted Communication: Use symmetric encryption (such as AES, ChaCha20) to protect data and prevent eavesdropping.
2. Identity verification: Verify the server's identity through digital certificates issued by third parties to designated organizations (such as X.509 certificates) to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks.
3. Data Integrity: Use HMAC (Hash-based Message Authentication Code) or AEAD (Authenticated Encryption) to ensure that data has not been tampered with.

The HTTPS communication process based on the TLS protocol is divided into two phases: the handshake phase and the data transmission phase. The specific steps are as follows:

1. The client sends ClientHello
2. The server sends ServerHello
3. Client verifies server
4. Start Encrypted Communication

Advantages of zkTLS

Traditional Web3 applications typically rely on oracle projects such as Chainlink and Pyth when accessing off-chain data. These projects serve as a relay bridge between on-chain data and off-chain data to break data silos. However, this oracle-based data acquisition solution has two main issues:

1. High costs: Maintaining the security of the PoS consensus mechanism requires a large amount of staked capital, and the redundancy of data interaction also increases costs.
2. Low efficiency: The consensus of the PoS mechanism requires a certain amount of time, resulting in a lag in on-chain data.

The zkTLS technology introduces zero-knowledge proof algorithms, allowing on-chain smart contracts to directly verify data provided by third parties, ensuring that the data comes from specific HTTPS resources and has not been tampered with. This approach avoids the high operating costs associated with traditional oracles due to consensus algorithms.

The main advantage of zkTLS lies in reducing the cost of achieving the availability of Web2 HTTPS resources. This has sparked many new demands, especially in terms of lowering on-chain price acquisition for long-tail assets, utilizing Web2 authoritative websites for on-chain KYC, and optimizing the technical architecture design of DID and Web3 games.

However, zkTLS technology also faces challenges, mainly how to reduce computational costs to make it commercially viable. At the same time, it has impacted existing Web3 companies, especially mainstream oracle projects. In response to this situation, industry giants like Chainlink and Pyth are actively following related research and exploring new business models, such as transitioning from time-based billing to usage-based billing, and providing Compute as a Service.

In summary, paying attention to the development trends of zkTLS during product design and appropriately integrating this technology stack may provide new breakthroughs in business innovation and technical architecture.