What happens when you put a leading cryptographer and a privacy-driven strategist on stage at a Nexus-hosted event at DevConnect 2025? to define the future of finance? You get a sharp, nuanced exploration of what “verifiability” really means — and why privacy, incentives, and AI will shape the systems we’re building now.
Nexus Chief Scientist Jens Groth sat down with Taceo Chief Strategy Officer Aisling Connolly for a candid, layered conversation on the evolving meaning of verifiable finance. The discussion moved seamlessly from zero-knowledge proofs and systemic risk to the role of AI agents in DeFi — and the ethical responsibility of infrastructure builders in a shifting digital landscape.
Here are the key takeaways:
1. What verifiable finance really means
Jens opened with a framing from cryptography: verifiable finance means systems where every transaction is provably correct, with cryptographic guarantees that extend from individual actions to the system as a whole. At Nexus, this principle powers the goal of building an internet where every computation is verifiable.
Aisling grounded this in user experience and industry history. “Don’t trust, verify” didn’t begin with zero-knowledge proofs — it started with public block explorers and the idea that anyone could independently confirm what happened. But ZK brings automation, efficiency, and strong correctness guarantees, making verifiability scalable.
Yet for Aisling, verifiability is inseparable from privacy. “I like to play around with crypto,” she noted. “But I’m also a professional in crypto. And I should look like I know what I’m doing.” The ability to explore without public scrutiny — or reputational risk — is foundational to innovation, and to fairness.
2. The privacy-verifiability tradeoff is institutional
A key tension emerged between transparency and confidentiality. Public blockchains prioritize openness. But for institutions, that model is often untenable.
“Finance is not about money,” Aisling argued. “It’s about trust.” In traditional finance, privacy isn’t a nice-to-have — it’s a regulatory and reputational cornerstone. And yet, as she observed, the shift to onchain systems has forced many institutions to prioritize verifiability first: proving correctness, even if operations remain semi-centralized.
Jens countered with a deeper concern: in decentralized systems, how do we incentivize confidentiality without regulators? In classical systems, data protection is enforced by law. In crypto, it’s not yet clear how to replicate that without introducing new risks — especially in models like MPC, where collusion can compromise secrecy without detection .
Aisling was candid: “This is the thing that keeps us up at night.” Taceo’s early solution leans on reputation, legal contracts, and trusted hardware. But longer-term, robust cryptoeconomic and cryptographic defenses will be needed.
3. What will actually drive adoption?
Jens posed the hard question: if verifiability empowers users and reduces institutional rent-seeking, why would institutions adopt it?
Aisling’s response was revealing. Traditional finance may lose some control — but it gains scale. “They just laugh and say: you don’t see how much this can grow the whole pie.” Lower infrastructure costs, new stablecoin yield opportunities, and programmable finance all hint at massive upside — especially as the technology matures .
In this sense, crypto’s institutional adoption isn’t a contradiction. It’s the result of traditional players recognizing that the benefits of verifiability — speed, security, efficiency — can outweigh the costs of decentralization, especially when privacy-preserving tools mature.
4. Agents are coming
The conversation turned sharpest around AI. Aisling issued a stark warning: “My worst fear is that somebody makes a half-baked agent that then becomes the whole financial system.”
Autonomous agents executing trades or managing assets without robust privacy protections could expose user strategies, leak sensitive data, or even become centralized chokepoints in disguise.
Jens countered with cautious optimism. Could AI actually help users verify systems, spot scams, and enforce transparency? Could it be the missing layer of accessibility in a verifiable internet?
Aisling appreciated the perspective — but emphasized that cryptographic guarantees must remain non-negotiable. “With privacy, there’s no partial credit. Nobody cheers when you get it 70% right.”
Privacy and verifiability
The session closed on a powerful note. Aisling called for a deeper synthesis: systems that don’t just protect data or verify correctness — but do both, simultaneously.
That’s the future she wants to build: a verifiable, private, scalable financial system. One where users can explore, institutions can trust, and the infrastructure itself invites confidence.
At Nexus, this vision resonates. As Jens reminded the room, “Not only should finance be verifiable — everything should be verifiable.”
