Fireside Chat with Kartik Talwar & Jordi Baylina at Pragma Prague 2025

Thu, Oct 2, 2025, 12:00 AM

In this fireside chat at Pragma Prague 2025, Kartik Talwar sits down with Jordi Baylina, co-founder of Polygon and technical lead of Polygon ZKVM, to explore cutting-edge zero-knowledge technology. They discuss real-time proof generation, hardware optimizations, the revolutionary potential of obfuscation technology, and critical questions around decentralization in L2 ecosystems. Baylina shares insights from building zkEVM, latency optimization strategies, and his vision for maintaining crypto's core values while pushing technological boundaries. 00:00 Introduction to Jordi Baylina and Polygon ZKVM 00:54 Focus on zkISK and real-time proof generation 01:28 Optimizing ZK technology for latency vs cost 02:02 Redesigning protocols for fast block proofs 02:38 Parallelization and execution optimization strategies 03:09 Aggregation layer improvements for speed 03:40 Hardware vs software optimization breakdown 04:09 RISK5 execution optimization breakthroughs 05:21 Achieving 1.5GHz RISK5 execution speeds 05:54 Proof aggregation time optimizations 06:59 GPU utilization lessons from Polygon 07:37 When GPU acceleration becomes cost-effective 08:09 Security learnings from zkEVM deployment 08:39 Production-ready ZK implementations 09:12 Introducing obfuscation as next-gen ZK tech 09:51 Bitcoin bridge potential without forks 10:29 Concept of program obfuscation explained 11:01 Embedded keys in obfuscated programs 11:31 Bitcoin-Ethereum bridge example 12:05 Current state of obfuscation research 12:39 Interdisciplinary approaches to obfuscation 13:44 Potential for trustless private blockchains 14:16 Running L2s on Bitcoin via obfuscation 14:51 Decentralization challenges in real-time proving 15:27 Market pressures vs decentralization values 16:08 Centralized sequencers in current rollups 16:48 Importance of censorship resistance 17:24 Missing values in L2 decentralization 18:00 Need for decentralized sequencers 18:33 Universal access requirements 19:05 User demand driving decentralization 19:37 Business priorities vs security tradeoffs 20:17 Advice for new L2 founders 20:52 Web3 vs Web2 architecture decisions 21:22 Measuring decentralization levels 22:23 Application-specific decentralization needs 22:54 Ethereum's base layer decentralization 23:50 Stack decentralization inheritance _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 🇨🇿 *Pragma Prague* Pragma Prague 2025 was held on May 29th at Holešovice Market in Prague, Czech Republic and was an in-person summit for builders and leaders in the web3 ecosystem. This event was in collaboration with ETH Prague. Watch the full Pragma Prague YouTube Playlist here: ETHGlobal's Pragma series takes place in cities around the world, and is designed to be a different kind of event. Pragma is a one-stage conference with founders-only on stage, bringing together a small group of curated attendees and speakers to discuss the future of web3 and reflect on the past. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ✅ Follow Jordi Baylina X: https://x.com/jbaylina ✅ Follow Polygon zkEVM X: https://x.com/polygonzkevm ✅ Follow Kartik Talwar X: https://x.com/TheRealKartik ✅ Follow ETHGlobal X: https://x.com/ETHGlobal​ Warpcast: https://warpcast.com/ethglobal Website: https://ethglobal.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@UCfF9ZO8Ug4xk_AJd4aeT5HA _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Are you interested in Ethereum development and entrepreneurship? 👉 Sign up for the next ETHGlobal event: https://ethglobal.com/events 🎁 Get exclusive access and perks with ETHGlobal Plus! https://ethglobal.com/plus 📣 Want us to throw an event in your city? Tell us where! https://ethglobal.com/city _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _