David knows his stuff; this isn't BS. Having a way to program arbitrary zero knowledge proofs sounds v. useful.

PLONK and friends are interesting cryptography. What makes you call this bullshit, exactly?

Although I think this comment is a little too negative, it is quite difficult to tell that this article isn't some sort of joke until about half way through. The entire introduction is boxes-in-boxes labelled with condiments that could easily be a hilarious parody. I was trying to figure out if I was being hoaxed until around the arithmetic circuits - where at least the notation gets interesting.

I'm still not sure.

tl;dr: they optimized their libraries, and they want you to believe it without actual proof, which wraps the concept of zero proof on itself.

> Pickles now uses an upgraded proof system: Kimchi. Kimchi brings several optimizations and quality-of-life improvements to circuit builders. This should allow for faster provers, larger circuits, and potentially shorter proof sizes!