Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin emphasized the transformative potential of zero-knowledge proofs (zk) at the ETH ChiangMai event. He highlighted zk technology's ability to ensure privacy and scalability for blockchains and its broader applications across the internet, such as identity verification and algorithm transparency. Buterin expects the expansion of zk-SNARKs and related technologies to significantly influence large-scale computation verification in the coming years.