Curious if Zero-Knowledge is Shifting Beyond Privacy & Scaling

[Gentlord]

Been noticing a subtle trend zero-knowledge proofs being applied beyond the usual privacy or L2 scaling use cases. Now there’s talk about integrating ZK into data warehousing and decentralized query systems.

The idea of smart contracts being able to pull in complex SQL-style data from both on-chain and off-chain sources (while still staying trustless) sounds like it could open up some new functionality, especially for things like DeFi protocols and AI-driven apps.

Stx recently building toward that direction, am seeing more focused on verifiable data infrastructure than the typical rollup.

Is this just a flashy use of ZK tech or something that could actually solve a legit gap in the ecosystem? Is this actually a viable direction for ZK?