A few days ago, in the article I wrote about the interoperability of all Layer2 of Ethereum, I mentioned that the Ethereum Foundation convened a meeting with a large number of project parties, among which Succinct attended as a stranger. At the same time, Brother Mao also raised questions about Succinct, which aroused my interest.
What is the relationship between Succinct and Layer2? What kind of project is Succinct that is as important as Arbitrum, Optimism, and Polygon? Let's talk about Succinct today.#Succinct#Layer2 #ETH
Succinct is a network that provides ZK proof conversion and supports ZK-ization of programs and information.
Developers submit their requirements, and Succinct returns ZK-ized results after calculation.
Details as follows 🧵👇
1. What is ZK?
ZK (zero-knowledge proof) is a concept in cryptography. Simply put, Zhang San tells Li Si: "I have 10 million yuan in my bank card", but without opening the bank account, Li Si can believe that Zhang San really has 10 million yuan.
It’s amazing, but this is ZK, a technology that allows two parties to establish trust without passing specific information. Unlike fraud proofs, ZK verification is very fast.
Does ZK have no disadvantages? Yes, it does. ZK requires a lot of computation to ensure performance and security, so it consumes much more resources than fraud proofs.
The specific ZK implementation principle is very complicated. I personally gave up after reading it. If you are interested, you can come and learn about it yourself.
Distributed consensus like Ethereum or Bitcoin, whether it is POS or POW, each verification node must repeat transaction calculations and verify correctness. Although decentralization is guaranteed, the speed is greatly reduced, which is also the bottleneck of blockchain performance.
But ZK allows the computation to convince the verifier of the correctness of the computation with a proof that is much shorter than the computation itself. By separating transaction execution from transaction verification, ZK proofs enable scalable blockchains in which only a few participants process expensive off-chain computations while others verify the proofs cheaply. Therefore, ZK allows blockchains to break through performance bottlenecks.
2⃣Why does the Ethereum ecosystem need ZK-ization?
First of all, everyone knows that Layer 2 networks based on fraud proofs such as Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base require a "challenge period" for final confirmation, which is currently 7 days. This is very inconvenient. Users need to wait for 7 days to transfer money or bridge from Ethereum to Layer 2, which is very inconvenient!
Some people say that Zksync and Starknet have already used ZK technology, but they do not have a good way to be compatible with the Ethereum virtual machine, and the verification of various "bridges" also takes time and is relatively slow.
Do we have a convenient way to convert fraud proofs or bridge verification into ZK verification? Succinct does exactly this - providing a network for "blockchain", "bridge", "oracle", etc. to be converted into ZK verification format, but this network, as mentioned earlier, requires computing power support.
At the same time, the ZK-ization of each Layer 2 and the bridge can greatly accelerate the interoperability between Ethereum Layer 2. It can be said that Succinct is an important infrastructure for the Layer 2 federation.
3. Succinct’s project structure
Succinct calls itself the "prover" of the blockchain world. The project's proof network is the Succinct Prover Network, and anyone can participate in the proof.
1. Developers write software in a general-purpose programming language (i.e. Rust, C++, etc.) and deploy it as a program to the prover network.
2. Develop and submit transaction requests to generate proof.
3. Provers compete to generate proofs, and the most efficient provers are rewarded for their work.
In more detail:
1. Developers deposit into the protocol on Ethereum mainnet to pay the proof fee, which is paid in $USDC.
2. The developer provides the input of the proof and protocol of the given program and the proof fee.
3. The staked attesters bid in the attestation competition mechanism for the right to generate attestations. After the attesters participate in the mechanism, the protocol selects the attesters to generate attestations before the deadline. If the attestations are not delivered before the deadline, their stake will be slashed.
4. Quote to off-chain participants and let them participate in the calculation.
5. After the prover generates the proof, the prover submits the proof for verification by the protocol. Once the proof is verified, the prover earns fees.
6. Provers accumulate balances that they can eventually withdraw from the network in $USDC years.
What is 4⃣SP1? How does it relate to the Succinct Prover Network?
SP1 is a zkVM that helps developers generate ZK proofs directly.
It is very troublesome for developers to develop maps by themselves, but it is much simpler to directly call the API of Amap. SP1 is equivalent to playing the role of API.
Developers can customize this API to generate the ZK proof they want.
The Succinct Prover Network is simply a computing network that generates ZK proofs, with provers competing to provide results.
5⃣Project Status
Succinct has raised a total of 55 million yuan in funding, led by the familiar Paradigm, followed by Robot, Bankless, and others.
Succinct launched the Succinct Prover Network testnet activity on February 10. Users can participate in the maintenance of the network as provers, and can also submit SP1 applications.
You will get stars by participating in the test network, but the current test network qualifications have been taken up. You can wait for the official qualifications to be released.
Currently, Optimism, Polygon, Celestia and Succinct have cooperated. For example, the ZK-based fraud proof of Optimism (Op Succinct) requires access to Succinct.
In the future, Succinct’s goal is not only to provide ZK proofs in the blockchain world, but also to support the construction of the ZK ecosystem in the entire “cyber world”.
Let’s follow Succinct’s footsteps and enter the ZK era together
🥚Easter Eggs
What’s interesting is that the front end of the project app is directly moved to a Mac computer, which contains many Easter eggs. You can explore them by yourself~
