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Zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs have quickly become one of blockchain technology’s most talked about items.

In recent days, the technology has been deployed to the Ethereum (ETH) mainnet, but now a host of new teams are at work scaling and optimizing the technology for Bitcoin.

A Swiss non-profit called the ZeroSync Association — based in Zug, Switzerland — is one of several entities now at work on developing zero-knowledge proofs for Bitcoin (BTC).

What are zero-knowledge proofs?

The core technology of ZK proofs theoretically enables users to validate the state and transaction history of the Bitcoin blockchain without downloading the entire chain or trusting a third party.

While numerous reports of other rollups have focused on layer 2s deployed to the Ethereum mainnet, the ZeroSync association–composed of Robin Linus, Tino Steffens and Lukas George–has plan to beef up optimization and security of their ZK rollup in the coming weeks.

“It’s very much in the prototype stage,” ZeroSync co-founder Robin Linus said to CoinDesk, adding “the grand vision is that you download that one megabyte of proof and that is as good as if you had downloaded the 500 gigabytes.”

ZK proofs are essentially two parties confirming their identity to each other — without disclosing any other information to a third party who might be watching.