8th May 2025 > > ZK proofs, Arizona, & New Hampshire.

tl;dr

ZK proofs are coming our way. Arizona appears to do an about-turn, or at least a partial one. New Hampshire wins the race.

Market Snap

Market Wrap

A distinct thawing in Trump’s tariff wars, growing conviction that the Fed is about to loosen policy quite dramatically, and new big buyers of BTC, can only lead to one outcome price-wise.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – Zero-knowledge proofs

I have been banging on about this for a while. The potential applications are seriously revolutionary. The basic concept is that Party A can prove to Party B that something is true, without revealing any information other than the fact it is true. Additionally, and this is a subtle nuance whose importance cannot be underestimated; Party C is unable to rely on the same information. Confused? Yep, you will be unless and until you read this explanation a few times:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-knowledge_proof

ZK proofs are being used in the crypto world, but at a deeper technical level than the CCC normally gets into which need not concern us today. What gets me excited is the potential application to our real-world existence. An obvious example would be the ability to open a bank account in your own name without having to share your identity documents aka offer up your passport, council tax bill, and other financial information to a centralised database for hackers to source and sell to scammers.

Google is on the case:

The idea is that by signing onto age-restricted websites (say no more, say no more *) using a crypto wallet which is in possession of your ID documents, your wallet will prove that you are of an appropriate age without revealing any other information about you.

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A modern day bugbear involves automated call response systems that require you to give your name, postcode, account number, and date of birth only to have to repeat it all when you finally get through to a real person to speak to. It is transparent that this is merely a diversionary tactic to try to fool you into thinking the wait time is shorter than it is (45 minutes for me today when I called HMRC). When ZK proofs become ubiquitous, and phone calls are routed via your crypto wallet making any exchange of personal information redundant, the makers of these automated systems will have to get creative with another ruse.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – Arizona

Stung by the recent criticism levelled at her by the CCC (https://www.curiouscryptos.com/post/29th-april-2025-price-predictions-arizona), Governor Katie Hobbs – fresh from vetoing the first of two bills allowing the state to hold BTC as a treasury reserve – has approved a second bill, allowing (ahem) the state to hold BTC as a treasury reserve.

To be fair, there is a not so-subtle difference between the two pieces of legislation. The first allowed the state treasurer to allocate up to 10% of funds into BTC. That is the one that Hobbs vetoed. The second allows for seized BTC (and other digital assets) to be held by the Treasury rather than simply sold, something that all governments have done in the past, a decision which has later come laden with huge regrets.

There has recently been a spate of setbacks in the legislative drive for BTC to be accepted as a reserve asset for some US states. I am hopeful that this is the first of a slew of positive developments bringing in a whole new category of buyers of BTC.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – New Hampshire

Right on cue, I have just read that two days ago New Hampshire became the very first US state to approve BTC as a treasury reserve asset:

Note that this will be new money coming into the space, unlike Arizona’s partial acceptance of BTC. More states will follow New Hampshire’s lead. Now we wait for the big one – the US government itself.

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(*) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Kwh3R0YjuQ