pseudotheoszkSNARKs vs zkSTARKs: a primer
Trying out a longer form article this time to allow a deeper dive into some areas of blockchain research. There are a lot of articles on zero knowledge proofs, and a lot of research papers on SNARKs or STARKs, but very little bridging the intermediate gap. If you haven’t read my introduction to zero knowledge proofs Twitter thread, I strongly recommend it before going further, as a lot of this article builds on top of it. pseudo 🇺🇦 @pseudotheos all these zk terms... what do they mean? what'...
pseudotheosPBS: Neutralizing the Dark Forest
Domothy and I co-authored this article. PBS is still an active area of research, but this comprehensive post aims to aggregate and summarize where research is so far- and where it’s headed. In the existing architecture, block proposers (previously miners) select transactions in the mempool to build a block. On Ethereum, these consist of validators running a consensus and execution client in tandem. Theoretically, a block builder would select transactions paying the highest fee- but this is no...
pseudotheosDistinguishing zkEVMs
The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) is the virtual machine that manages state and executes smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain. zkEVMs, which aim to prove EVM execution through zero-knowledge (ZK) circuitry, have seen significant growth and expansion as an industry over the past year. Many different projects and community efforts have emerged in this space, each taking its own unique approach to the challenges and opportunities presented by the intersection of these two technologies. On...
zk maxi helping bring research into the mainstream.
pseudotheoszkSNARKs vs zkSTARKs: a primer
Trying out a longer form article this time to allow a deeper dive into some areas of blockchain research. There are a lot of articles on zero knowledge proofs, and a lot of research papers on SNARKs or STARKs, but very little bridging the intermediate gap. If you haven’t read my introduction to zero knowledge proofs Twitter thread, I strongly recommend it before going further, as a lot of this article builds on top of it. pseudo 🇺🇦 @pseudotheos all these zk terms... what do they mean? what'...
pseudotheosPBS: Neutralizing the Dark Forest
Domothy and I co-authored this article. PBS is still an active area of research, but this comprehensive post aims to aggregate and summarize where research is so far- and where it’s headed. In the existing architecture, block proposers (previously miners) select transactions in the mempool to build a block. On Ethereum, these consist of validators running a consensus and execution client in tandem. Theoretically, a block builder would select transactions paying the highest fee- but this is no...
pseudotheosDistinguishing zkEVMs
The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) is the virtual machine that manages state and executes smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain. zkEVMs, which aim to prove EVM execution through zero-knowledge (ZK) circuitry, have seen significant growth and expansion as an industry over the past year. Many different projects and community efforts have emerged in this space, each taking its own unique approach to the challenges and opportunities presented by the intersection of these two technologies. On...
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In my previous post in this series, we went over zkSync and the zkEVM. Let’s go over StarkWare’s ZK rollup solution, which uses STARKs instead of SNARKs.
StarkWare was founded in 2018 by Eli Ben-Sasson, Uri Kolodny, Michael Riabzev, and Alessandro Chiesa. StarkWare has the goal of scaling Ethereum using ZK proofs via StarkNet and StarkEx.
Outlined in further detail in my previous SNARKs vs STARKs post, STARK stands for Scalable Transparent ARguments of Knowledge. STARKs have several advantages over SNARKs, namely:
Trusted setup is not required
Faster computation times compared to SNARKs
Hash functions (STARKs) are faster than elliptic curves (SNARKs)
However, STARKs cost more gas to settle on L1 Ethereum.
The StarkWare stack consists of several key features:
Shared Prover (SHARP)
Generates the proofs and hands off to the Verifier
saves costs by bundling computations of multiple dApps into a single proof
Verifier (existing on L1)
Verifies SHARP proofs as valid. If so, the hash is stored in a fact registry.
Applications either interface with StarkEx (in the case of enterprise and permissioned applications) or the SHARP directly (in the case of StarkNet applications).
StarkNet is StarkWare’s permissionless rollup. Any developer is free to build on top of it and reap the benefits of STARKs. StarkNet Alpha launched in November 2021. As the alpha released relatively recently, there have not been many protocols, dApps, or wallet providers (with the exception of Argent X) deployed, but developer interest has been increasing.
Once StarkNet is fully live and battle-tested, StarkEx protocols can migrate to StarkNet to reap the benefits of composability if desired.
StarkEx is StarkWare’s enterprise STARK solution, and has been operational since June 2020. Currently, it serves as the backbone for dYdX Exchange (a perpetuals platform), Sorare (a NFT collectible football management game), Immutable X (a NFT-focused platform, recently partnered with GameStop), and DeversiFi (a decentralized exchange).
With new technology comes new requirements. Cairo is a custom Turing-complete language developed specifically for STARKs. The benefits are outlined in this thread:
While Cairo is better for performance and scalability, it is still incredibly new. Developers have not have had enough time to get familiar with it, and existing L1 applications cannot easily be ported to StarkNet/StarkEx. Warp, developed by Nethermind, is a EVM to Cairo transpiler. Warp allows Solidity contracts to be converted to Cairo seamlessly, allowing developers to deploy on StarkNet.
StarkWare, much like Matter Labs, is building the foundations for an infinitely scalable execution layer via ZK rollups. While Matter Labs is taking a crypto-native approach, StarkWare is building an enterprise SaaS model to capture a large amount of the existing enterprise market. STARKs are newer than SNARKs, but they are already being shown as an effective solution for provable offchain computation.
Thanks for reading this article! This is the summation of a lot of research to help bridge the knowledge gap. Follow me on Twitter to get notified about future posts and let me know what you think. My content will remain 100% free, forever, and is licensed under CC BY-SA unless otherwise specified. Cover art credit: Mr. Hasgaha (Special thanks to Shannon and Swagtimus for the proofread!)
Solution architecture | StarkWare: Bringing scalability, security, and privacy to a blockchain near you.
In my previous post in this series, we went over zkSync and the zkEVM. Let’s go over StarkWare’s ZK rollup solution, which uses STARKs instead of SNARKs.
StarkWare was founded in 2018 by Eli Ben-Sasson, Uri Kolodny, Michael Riabzev, and Alessandro Chiesa. StarkWare has the goal of scaling Ethereum using ZK proofs via StarkNet and StarkEx.
Outlined in further detail in my previous SNARKs vs STARKs post, STARK stands for Scalable Transparent ARguments of Knowledge. STARKs have several advantages over SNARKs, namely:
Trusted setup is not required
Faster computation times compared to SNARKs
Hash functions (STARKs) are faster than elliptic curves (SNARKs)
However, STARKs cost more gas to settle on L1 Ethereum.
The StarkWare stack consists of several key features:
Shared Prover (SHARP)
Generates the proofs and hands off to the Verifier
saves costs by bundling computations of multiple dApps into a single proof
Verifier (existing on L1)
Verifies SHARP proofs as valid. If so, the hash is stored in a fact registry.
Applications either interface with StarkEx (in the case of enterprise and permissioned applications) or the SHARP directly (in the case of StarkNet applications).
StarkNet is StarkWare’s permissionless rollup. Any developer is free to build on top of it and reap the benefits of STARKs. StarkNet Alpha launched in November 2021. As the alpha released relatively recently, there have not been many protocols, dApps, or wallet providers (with the exception of Argent X) deployed, but developer interest has been increasing.
Once StarkNet is fully live and battle-tested, StarkEx protocols can migrate to StarkNet to reap the benefits of composability if desired.
StarkEx is StarkWare’s enterprise STARK solution, and has been operational since June 2020. Currently, it serves as the backbone for dYdX Exchange (a perpetuals platform), Sorare (a NFT collectible football management game), Immutable X (a NFT-focused platform, recently partnered with GameStop), and DeversiFi (a decentralized exchange).
With new technology comes new requirements. Cairo is a custom Turing-complete language developed specifically for STARKs. The benefits are outlined in this thread:
While Cairo is better for performance and scalability, it is still incredibly new. Developers have not have had enough time to get familiar with it, and existing L1 applications cannot easily be ported to StarkNet/StarkEx. Warp, developed by Nethermind, is a EVM to Cairo transpiler. Warp allows Solidity contracts to be converted to Cairo seamlessly, allowing developers to deploy on StarkNet.
StarkWare, much like Matter Labs, is building the foundations for an infinitely scalable execution layer via ZK rollups. While Matter Labs is taking a crypto-native approach, StarkWare is building an enterprise SaaS model to capture a large amount of the existing enterprise market. STARKs are newer than SNARKs, but they are already being shown as an effective solution for provable offchain computation.
Thanks for reading this article! This is the summation of a lot of research to help bridge the knowledge gap. Follow me on Twitter to get notified about future posts and let me know what you think. My content will remain 100% free, forever, and is licensed under CC BY-SA unless otherwise specified. Cover art credit: Mr. Hasgaha (Special thanks to Shannon and Swagtimus for the proofread!)
Solution architecture | StarkWare: Bringing scalability, security, and privacy to a blockchain near you.
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