Over the past few years, I've been deeply involved in zero-knowledge (ZK) technology not just from the perspective of cryptography or scalability, but also for what it represents: privacy, autonomy, and pluralism in an increasingly centralized digital world.

Recently, I came across a post that helped crystallize something I’ve been trying to articulate: why identity, governance, and participation online need to evolve beyond simple "one person, one vote" models and how ZK can play a pivotal role in enabling that evolution.

This isn’t just theory. This is part of the core ideology behind why we started building Proof of Witness.

The Core Idea: Pluralistic Identity > One Identity to Rule Them All

We live in a world of implicit pluralistic identity already. You have a Google account, maybe a Twitter (X) account, a government ID, a work email, an ENS name and none of these fully define “you.” But that’s actually a strength, not a bug.

True digital freedom demands no single chokepoint. No sole login. No one place to target, to cancel, to surveil, or to control. Pluralism is antifragility.

This is where explicit pluralistic identity and ZK tools come in. What we need isn't just identity tied to wallets or passports but a fabric of community-driven, pseudonymous proofs of personhood that don’t rely on singular authorities.

The Quadratic Truth: N Identities at N² Cost

The post lays out something beautiful: that the “ideal” resistance to identity manipulation isn't about hard caps or absolute one-per-person constraints. It’s about cost curves.

If N identities give you N² power, then it should cost you N² to get them.
Too cheap = abuse.
Too strict = loss of privacy and coercion-resistance.

This is exactly why we’re bullish on ZK. It gives us the knobs to create flexible identity systems that scale resistance to manipulation without killing pseudonymity.

Imagine being able to prove what kind of follower base you have, or that you have skin in the game without ever revealing who you are. That’s the real power of ZK applied to identity. And that’s what the future needs.

ZK as Infrastructure for Culture

What excites me most isn’t just the technical elegance of ZK, but what it enables culturally.

Governance isn’t just voting. It’s speech, influence, the slow evolution of norms. It’s memes, forks, vibes, and pushback. And if we want everyone to participate in that culture not just the rich, the loud, or the doxxed then we need systems that invite partial pseudonymity, encourage organic expression, and resist capture.

Proof of Witness isn’t just a builder collective. It’s our attempt to prototype this new culture one where participation, identity, and contribution don’t depend on centralized identity providers, but emerge from a diverse, pluralistic social graph powered by ZK.

What Comes Next

I’m writing more about this because I think this conversation is just starting. We’re going to need new frameworks, primitives, and communities to realize this vision. No single app or protocol will "solve" identity. It’s a collective cultural upgrade.

That’s the direction Proof of Witness is going and if this resonates with you, I’d love to talk.

Building for Builders: Why Communities Like Ours Matter

At some point, I realized something simple but often overlooked: ZK won’t scale through just code it’ll scale through conviction.

And conviction doesn’t come from whitepapers alone. It comes from culture. From jam sessions with other devs at midnight. From shipping hackathon prototypes with friends who care more about values than clout. From having space to explore without gatekeepers, without pressure, without a roadmap forced by capital or trends.

That’s the reason I created Proof of Witness.
Not just a dev community. Not just a ZK starter group. But a living, breathing organism where builders can learn, debate, ship, and fail together with a shared respect for privacy, decentralization, and pluralistic trust.

It’s a sandbox for the misfits, the obsessed, the skeptical optimists anyone who believes ZK is more than just a buzzword.
It’s for those who see identity as a field, not a field to be conquered.

Fighting the Urge to Standardize Too Early

There’s a dangerous temptation in early tech especially in identity systems to standardize before we understand.

To say “this is the one right way.”
To crown a single PoP method, a single DID spec, a single graph model.
But that’s how monocultures emerge. And monocultures die hard.

Instead, we need what I call “iterative pluralism.” Let there be 50 experiments in proof-of-personhood. Let there be teams focused on privacy-preserving uniqueness, attestation markets, multi-sig social proofs, or even game-theoretic stake-weighted models. Let reputation evolve bottom-up, not top-down.

At Proof of Witness, our community exists to test, break, remix, and refine those models. We're not here to tell the world which protocol to use we’re here to prototype the conditions for robust and diverse identity ecosystems to form.

Proofs as Language, Not Just Credentials

This part is core to my ideology:
In the future we’re trying to build, ZK Proofs aren’t just credentials, they’re language.

Just like words let us communicate intent, nuance, and emotion, proofs let us communicate trust without oversharing, without exposing, without surrendering control.

You don’t need to prove who you are, but why you’re credible, why you belong in the room, why your voice matters.
You don’t need to broadcast your resume just prove you’ve been in the arena.

And every builder, artist, dev, researcher in the Proof of Witness circle is exploring what this new grammar of trust looks like.

What We’re Doing Next (And an Invitation)

Over the next few months, our focus at Proof of Witness will revolve around three core efforts:

ZK Playground Series — in-person and remote meetups for builders to co-create weird, boundary-pushing identity primitives. Expect Circom, Noir, semaphore forks, and lots of debates.
Ideology-Powered Onboarding — not “what is ZK?” but “why ZK matters.” We’ll publish essays, curriculum, and hands-on challenges that provoke new thinking around identity, governance, and trust.
Collab Grants & Residency — we’re setting up micro-grants and hack tracks to support indie builders and niche experiments, especially the ones too early for VC but too important to ignore.

We’re not trying to own the ZK identity narrative we’re just trying to add to it. And we want to do it alongside people who care deeply about the same things.

Closing Thought: If You Feel It, Build It

If you’ve ever felt like your values didn’t fit neatly into the current Web3 playbook...
If you believe that digital identity should empower you not define or trap you...
If you feel like the ZK movement is missing more human, community-first voices...

Then maybe you’re one of us.

We’re not recruiting. We’re not marketing. We’re inviting.
To contribute. To remix. To argue. To laugh. To ship.
To help build not just a better stack, but a more plural, expressive, trustworthy internet.

If that resonates let’s jam.

Founder, Proof of Witness
ZK culture is infrastructure. Community is protocol. Identity is fluid.

Pluralism, Pseudonymity, and the Future of ZK Identity: Why We Built Proof of Witness