The Gap Between Web3 and Ordinary Internet Users

Although Web3 has developed powerful tools and infrastructure, the lives of ordinary internet users still remain in the Web2 era. Despite significant progress in the cryptocurrency field, including the launch of Layer 2 scaling solutions, the emergence of zkVM, and the approval of ETFs, blockchain still feels like a distant field that most people have never actually engaged with.

This fracture does not stem from the technology itself, but rather from the fact that Web3 is currently unable to reach the digital lives of ordinary users. Most internet users are still browsing, trading, and socializing on centralized platforms that control user data. To achieve mainstream adoption, the key lies in connecting the worlds of Web2 and Web3 in a trustless and privacy-preserving manner.

Reasons Why Web3 Has Not Broken Through

Our daily online interactions, whether it's banking, social media, or government services, occur within a tightly controlled ecosystem. Our digital identities are fragmented across various platforms, each controlling a certain aspect of our lives. This fragmentation leads to two core issues:

1. Data Silos: Online identities are dispersed across different platforms, each with its own rules and permissions.

2. Lack of ownership: Users do not actually own their data; at most, they only have access rights, which can be revoked or restricted at any time.

These issues manifest in many inconveniences in daily life. For example, proving income may require providing a complete bank statement, while verifying an address may necessitate uploading an entire utility bill. The current system assumes that complete transparency is the only way to build trust, due to the lack of infrastructure for selective and verifiable disclosures.

Despite Web3's promise to empower users with control, this promise has yet to be fulfilled when it comes to the everyday data stemming from Web2.

Missing Link: Verifiable Web2 Data

The real bottleneck lies in how to enable Web3 applications to leverage the data we have generated without compromising user privacy or introducing new trusted intermediaries. This involves two key challenges:

1. Verifiability: How to cryptographically prove the credibility of Web2 data sources without relying on centralized oracles or APIs.

2. Privacy: How to prove only the necessary information without exposing the complete data.

Chainlink and other oracle providers have partially addressed the verifiability of public data. However, for specific personal data, such as financial records, qualifications, identity credentials, etc., different approaches are needed. This data is usually found within encrypted channels after logging in and is not designed for extraction or sharing.

This is where zkTLS comes into play.

zkTLS: A Bridge Connecting Web2 and Web3

zkTLS( Zero-Knowledge TLS) is based on the widely used TLS protocol on the Internet, adding new features: allowing users to extract and prove specific facts from Web2 data streams without exposing the full content or relying on third parties.

zkTLS provides two key capabilities:

1. On-chain verifiability: proving that data comes from a specific Web2 source and has not been tampered with.

2. Selective Disclosure: Proving specific attributes without revealing complete data.

The working principle of zkTLS:

1. Capture the encrypted TLS session between the user and the website.
2. Generate zero-knowledge proof to prove a specific statement (, such as a certain value appearing in the response ).
3. Verify the proof on the blockchain without trust and protect privacy.

This avoids the need to expose data to third parties or rely on centralized servers to prove the data. Trust is embedded in the cryptographic proof itself.

Practical Applications of zkTLS

zkTLS is redefining the boundaries between Web2 and Web3, enabling applications to integrate real-world context without compromising privacy or decentralization. Here are its applications in different fields:

financial services

zkTLS enables the verification of income, cash flow, or account history without exposing sensitive documents. This provides DeFi protocols with possibilities beyond over-collateralization.

• A certain protocol is building a peer-to-pool credit system, providing unsecured USDC credit lines for traders and enterprises, based on verifiable proof in DeFi, CEX, and banks.
• Another platform supports a flexible peer-to-peer lending market, where borrowers can privately prove their income or account activity to unlock funds.
• RWA tokenization projects begin using zkTLS to verify asset ownership through government portals, achieving compliant on-chain assetization.
• A certain project is building a decentralized gateway for fiat to cryptocurrency, allowing users to make payments using zkTLS proofs without KYC or intermediaries.

Consumer Platform

zkTLS makes digital goods, subscriptions, and purchase history in Web2 portable and verifiable without platform permission.

• A certain platform allows users to verify the ownership of game skins and collectibles through Steam data, enabling secure peer-to-peer transactions.
• zkTLS is used to prove access rights to closed communities, subscriptions, or premium content without the need for account linking or API access.
• In e-commerce, users can prove past purchases or loyalty program activities to unlock cashback, token rewards, or resale markets.

Identity and Reputation

zkTLS changes the current fragmented and overly exposed digital identity situation by allowing selective disclosure from trusted sources.

• A certain project serves as a privacy-preserving identity oracle, transforming files and data from Web2 platforms into selective on-chain proofs.
• Another platform supports cross-application reputation layers, verifying credit scores, location, or service usage history, without the need for KYC.
• A certain project allows professionals to create credible and verifiable work profiles based on employment history and social graphs.

Social and Content

zkTLS unlocks user behavior data within the platform, making participation portable and programmable.

• A certain platform allows users to prove that they have seen or interacted with advertisements without revealing their identity. Advertisers reach real users, users receive rewards, and the data remains private.
• Another project verifies game profiles and performance data through zkTLS. Players can prove their skills and claim rewards without needing screenshots.

Influence and Behavior

zkTLS makes it possible to prove actions without surveillance, applicable in areas such as fitness, sustainability, and more.

• A certain project uses IoT and registered data to verify the ownership and usage of solar equipment without exposing the user's identity or location.
• Another platform links sports rewards to verified activity data without disclosing health or GPS information.

Emerging Frontier

In the fields of artificial intelligence, agents, and decentralized coordination, zkTLS provides critical infrastructure for proof and trust.

• A certain project is building autonomous agents that generate zk-supported logs of their actions, making AI decisions verifiable and auditable.
• Another platform allows whistleblowers and experts to prove affiliations or insights without revealing their identity.
• zkTLS is also used to verify the training data of machine learning, ensuring authenticity while protecting the privacy of contributors.

Conclusion

zkTLS not only makes Web2 data available in Web3 but also makes it ownable. As more applications adopt zkTLS, we will see a compound effect: more verifiable data leads to more powerful applications, giving users greater control.

This is not about replacing existing systems, but rather empowering users with control over them and building a path of trust, privacy, and composability that can grow together. zkTLS provides the infrastructure for encryption to enter the mainstream, enabling the next generation of applications - applications that empower users with greater control, reduce friction, and unlock true value.