ChainCatcher news, Vitalik Buterin published a new article titled "Exploring circle STARKs," which points out that Starkware can prove 620,000 Poseidon2 hashes per second on an M3 chip laptop. This means that if we are willing to trust Poseidon2 as a hash function, one of the most challenging parts of creating an efficient ZK-EVM has actually been solved.It states that compared to conventional STARKs, circle STARK does not introduce too much additional complexity for developers. The mathematical principles behind the "polynomials" operated by circle FRI are quite counterintuitive and take some time to understand and grasp. However, this complexity is precisely hidden, and developers remain unaware of it. The complexity of Circle's mathematical principles is encapsulated rather than systemic.Vitalik believes that by combining Mersenne31, BabyBear, and binary field technologies like Binius, we are approaching the efficiency limits of STARKs' "base layer"; it is expected that the frontier of STARK optimization will shift towards the most efficient arithmetic of primitives such as hash functions and signatures (and optimizing these primitives themselves for this purpose), creating recursive structures for more parallelization, arithmetic for virtual machines to improve developer experience, and other higher-level tasks.

ChainCatcher news, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin published an in-depth discussion on the concept of "ZK-EVM" (Zero-Knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine) and its possible implementations.The article points out that current Layer-2 EVM protocols (such as Optimistic Rollups and ZK Rollups) rely on the verification mechanism of the EVM, but this also means they must trust a large codebase. Once there are vulnerabilities in the codebase, these virtual machines may face the risk of being attacked. Furthermore, even the ZK-EVM, which aims to maintain complete equivalence with L1 EVM, requires some form of governance mechanism to replicate changes from L1 EVM into its own EVM implementation.The ZK-EVM concept proposed by Buterin aims to reduce the redundant implementation of Ethereum protocol functionalities by Layer-2 projects and improve their efficiency in validating Layer-1 Ethereum blocks. He also envisions that future light clients will become more powerful and may even utilize ZK-SNARKs (zero-knowledge proofs) to fully verify L1 EVM execution, at which point the Ethereum network will essentially have built-in ZK-EVM functionality.The article also discusses different versions of implementing ZK-EVM, including their design challenges, trade-offs, and why certain directions may not be adopted. It emphasizes that when implementing protocol functionalities, one should weigh the benefits against the advantages of keeping the underlying protocol simple. Regarding the key attributes of ZK-EVM, Buterin highlighted its fundamental functionality, compatibility with Ethereum's multi-client philosophy, data availability requirements, auditability, and upgradability. Additionally, he mentioned support for "almost-EVM," which allows L2's VM to use the protocol's ZK-EVM while having only minor differences from EVM, providing flexibility for partial customization of EVM.

ChainCatcher news, the official of the blockchain game Abyss World stated on social media that the Abyss World team has decided to build the game based on Polygon zk-EVM.It is reported that this will make the execution of smart contracts in Abyss World more efficient and capable of handling more user interactions. The team hopes that the collaboration with PolygonGaming will unleash the full potential of creativity in Web3 gaming. (Source link)

ChainCatcher message, Ethereum founder Vitalik emphasized the importance of Ethereum's multi-client philosophy in maintaining its security and decentralization in his latest article "How Will Ethereum's Multi-Client Philosophy Interact with ZK-EVM?". Ethereum does not have a default "reference client" that everyone runs; instead, there is a collaboratively managed specification with multiple teams implementing the specification (i.e., "clients"). Vitalik highlighted the significance of ZK-EVM as a new transition that utilizes SNARK proofs executed by EVM and actively supports second-layer protocols like ZK Rollup on the mainnet.However, the challenge of ZK-EVM lies in how it interacts with the multi-client philosophy. To address this issue, Vitalik suggested that each client should wait for a proof compatible with its own implementation before accepting a valid block. This approach sacrifices some benefits of the multi-client paradigm, but it is ideal until it can be formally proven that all ZK-EVM implementations are equivalent to each other. ZK-EVM will become the third client of Ethereum, which is crucial for the network's security and decentralization. However, this approach also faces challenges, such as handling malicious attackers who may delay block publication and the latency challenges posed by proofs that are valid for one client. (source link)

ChainCatcher news, the Ethereum Layer 2 network Taiko based on zkRollup has launched the ZK-EVM alpha-2 testnet "Askja", which now allows developers to deploy smart contracts. This testnet currently partially integrates ZKP validity proofs, enabling validators to generate proofs without permission.In addition, Taiko enables protocol economics, providing real rewards to validators to compensate for their resource consumption. The Taiko L2 testnet corresponds to the Ethereum testnet Sepolia and has deployed a Uniswap V2 fork to support trading. (source link)

Chaincatcher news, the Ethereum ZK-Rollup scaling solution Taiko has published its roadmap, planning to launch the Alpha-2 testnet this month, which includes permissionless provers and some ZK-EVM circuits, with the mainnet going live in early 2024, achieving complete ZK-EVM circuits, decentralized proposers, and decentralized provers. (source link)

ChainCatcher news, the cross-chain bridge Hop Protocol recently announced that ConsenSys zk-EVM has been integrated into Hop's test site. When the testnet is open to the public, users will be able to send Goerli ETH from any supported testnet chain to the new ConsenSys zk-EVM.Hop stated that this integration was initially proposed by the ConsenSys zk-EVM team on the Hop governance forum and was unanimously approved through all stages of the governance cycle. (source link)

ChainCatcher news, zero-knowledge proof technology development company StarkWare announced on Twitter that it has completed the ZK-EVM using the STARK proof system programming language Cairo, and will invite Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, ZK-STARK co-inventor Eli Ben-Sasson, and StarkWare member Shahar Papini to a Twitter Space tomorrow. It is reported that Cairo is a Turing-complete zero-knowledge proof system language and is still in the early stages of development. (source link)

ChainCatcher news, Ethereum infrastructure development company ConsenSys has released a new EVM-equivalent Ethereum Virtual Machine (zk-EVM) specification. The design goals include executing unchanged native bytecode as specified in the yellow paper, achieving 100% coverage of different opcodes, and delivering the "Type 2" zk-EVM defined by Vitalik, allowing developers to deploy any smart contract using any tools and develop exactly as they would when building applications on L1. The current test version is now open.The team is working hard to achieve the complete design of zk-EVM and will soon launch a private testnet to receive feedback from the community. All dApp developers, users, researchers, and existing protocols are welcome to join and help expand Ethereum. (source link)