From 0 to ZK Concept Bites #7#: Verifiable Provenance Last time we covered the redundancy problem, how Ethereum's "everyone verifies everything" model creates the bottleneck that real-time proving solves. This time, a different ZK property: provenance. 🛡️ Provenance is the ability to prove where something came from and what happened to it along the way. The clearest live example is Brevis Vera. Modern flagship cameras (Sony, Leica, Nikon, Canon) ship with C2PA, a standard that cryptographically signs every photo at the moment of capture. The image carries a verifiable record of which device produced it. Any edit afterwards breaks that signature. Vera fixes the break. Each edit between capture and publication runs inside Pico zkVM, which generates a proof that the edit was legitimate. The result is an unbroken chain from camera sensor to whatever image you're looking at. Provenance shows up beyond images too. Anywhere you need a verifiable chain of custody, this is the property doing the work. We just added a section on this to Part 4 of the refreshed From 0 Knowledge to Zero Knowledge series. Dive deeper there 👇

SITUATION EXPLAINED: A Chinese state-backed company started mass-producing DUV lithography tools, a step below EUV but still significant. • ASML shares fell as much as 6.5%, their lowest since early June, after The Information reported a Shanghai-based, state-backed company began mass-producing immersion DUV lithography machines • The company is Shanghai Yuliangsheng, with ties to Huawei and the SiCarrier equipment group, it brought together immersion DUV development teams from other Chinese firms • Plans call for 5 tools this year and 20 next year, with confirmed customers SMIC, CXMT, and Hua Hong Semiconductor • Real caveat: SMIC has actually been trialing this tool since September 2025, and active mass production isn't targeted until 2027 at the earliest • Independent analysis from the AI Futures Project puts commercial-scale Chinese immersion DUV in the mid-2030s, with ASML still holding 98.7% of the immersion lithography market • Chinese chipmakers are currently only allowed to buy ASML's older DUV tools, not its cutting-edge EUV machines • The MATCH Act, moving through Congress, would widen restrictions specifically on immersion DUV equipment • China is separately developing its own domestic EUV machine, but that project remains at the prototype stage and is likely years away from producing working chips • Nikon and Canon are the only other established DUV/lithography vendors outside ASML, alongside SMEE as another Chinese domestic challenger @theojaffee: "Someone has to own the bottom of the market. Chinese DUV would be the same thing for ASML. The frontier leading-edge chip fabs will still be using ASML EUV machines, but less leading-edge fabs would use DUV machines, like, for example, it would be really helpful for Huawei."

Nihon Falcom has reported a 1,216.4% increase in operating profit for the first half of its fiscal year ending September 2026. The company earned ¥969 million ($6.1 million), compared to ¥73 million ($0.5 million) in the same period last year. This growth was driven by the successful release of Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter, a remake of the popular series. The title boosted the company’s licensing division, which saw a 194.8% surge in revenue.