Technical Content

The year of zkVM real-time proving: milestones, present and future

Introduction Ethereum is a decentralized verifiable computer. The way in which we can achieve this verifiability is through re-execution of each computation, consensus and economic incentives. Nevertheless, this strategy suffers from one main drawback: all the nodes have to do the same work over and over again in order to

zkVMs, Circuits, and the Optimization Game

Mauro Toscano, Aligned co-founder and CTO, explores the engineering tradeoffs between ZK circuits and zkVMs and how to think about designing and building these systems

Why Aligned Chose Ethrex as the Rollup Stack for Our RaaS Platform

Aligned’s Rollup-as-a-Service (RaaS) platform will soon give teams everything they need to access Ethereum’s trust by making rollup deployment as easy as any web2 service. We’re making based ZK-rollups accessible to anyone—so you can focus on your business case.We chose Ethrex as the stack for

What is a zkVM and why should you care about them?

You've probably heard the term zkVM buzzing around lately, especially in the context of ZK-rollups and scaling Ethereum. This guide is meant to demystify them so you can understand what they are, how they work (at a high level), why you should care about them, and what their

Alternatives to re-execution

The goal of blockchains Blockchain technology has emerged to provide a decentralized and secure way to record and verify transactions across a distributed network of participants. The main objective is to eliminate the need for intermediaries, by enabling peer-to-peer transactions. This is achieved through cryptographic techniques that ensure the integrity

Neutral, standardized benchmarking of zkVM proving times

Zero-knowledge virtual machines (zkVMs) are virtual machines that let you write and execute code in common languages like Rust or C and generate proofs demonstrating the integrity of computations. This makes building with ZK much more accessible to developers, and is a key part of Ethereum’s scaling roadmap. While

The Future of Blockchains: Intent-Based Architectures with Zero-Knowledge Proofs

Introduction The evolution of decentralized applications (dApps) depends on a shift from programmable settlement to intent-based architectures. These systems redefine how applications are built, focusing on generalized intents—high-level expressions of desired outcomes. By leveraging zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) and succinct validity proofs, intent-based architectures offer transformative advantages in scalability, privacy,

Design Strategies: How to Construct A Hashing Mode?

Recap In our previous blog, we explored the fundamental properties of cryptographic hash functions (CHFs) and discussed their crucial role in maintaining the integrity and security of data with 3MI Labs. In this post, we delve into the architectural strategies behind hash functions. These strategies, or modes of operation, are

Introduction: Hash functions in Cryptography

Cryptographic Hash Functions (CHF) are fundamental to securing the digital world. From protecting passwords to enabling blockchain and zero-knowledge (ZK) systems, CHFs play a crucial role in ensuring the integrity, security, and privacy of data. This blog is the first in a series where we’ll explore the world of

A Series On Hash Functions

The development and use of integrity/zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs has accelerated over the past few years. The introduction of general purpose ZK virtual machines, which allow us to write and prove Rust code, has made developing verifiable applications easier and faster. We have blockchains like Mina that prove every block

Introduction to Polynomial Commitment Schemes (PCS)

Polynomial commitment schemes (PCS) are at the core of proof systems. They determine key properties such as proof size, verification time, and whether the system is post-quantum secure. The Kate-Zaverucha-Goldberg (KZG) is a popular PCS, first appearing in 2010. Learn more: Polynomial commitment schemes allow us to commit to a

Plonk: A Mathematical Overview of this Proof System

Plonk is one of the most widely used proof systems. It is at the core of the proof systems used by ZKsync, Mina, Halo2 (by Zcash), Plonky2 (Polygon), and Succinct Labs SP1’s compression proof, gnark, due to its versatility and efficient prover. Since it's introduction, the Plonk

Mina to Ethereum Bridge

Mina is a layer 1 (L1) blockchain that uses zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP) to maintain its size at 22 kB. Its vibrant community and technology make it unique and developers and users from other ecosystems could benefit from their interaction with Mina. To this end, Aligned will support the technology needed

Learn about: Binius - A proof system on binary fields

Recently, Vitalik Buterin wrote on binary fields and their potential to generate zero-knowledge proofs. Binary fields are finite fields with characteristic equal to two. We can view them as polynomials whose coefficients can only take the values 0 and 1, so 1 + x^2 + x^6 are elements in some

Learn About: Kimchi Proofs

Aligned is designed to verify any proof system efficiently and for a fraction of the cost in Ethereum. Kimchi is the proof system at the heart of Mina. Do you want to know what makes Kimchi special? Mina is a succinct blockchain. It generates proofs for each block,  allowing any

Aligning an interoperable multi-chain future with ZK

The future of crypto is increasingly multi-chain. Blockchains are a powerful new platform for developers to build decentralized and trustless applications, but their properties place limits on scalability. To address this, we have seen an explosion in the number of blockchains, which has increased the global supply of blockspace and

What does a ZK Verification Layer do?

Aligned is a ZK verification layer for Ethereum. But what does a ZK verification layer do? Why is it needed? Read on to find out! Ethereum is achieving scalability through a rollup-centric roadmap. There are two types of rollups: optimistic and ZK. Basically, we move execution to rollups, which inherit

Exploring ZK Proofs: A Focus on the Groth16 proof system

Aligned is designed to verify every proof system. Groth16 was one of the first efficient proof systems. It's used by projects like Zcash, Worldcoin, RISC Zero, and SP1 by Succinct Labs. At the core of Groth16 lie pairing-friendly elliptic curves, such as BN254 and BLS12-381. These curves allow

Aligned: The Integrity Layer

Aligned is designed to verify zk proofs cheaply, with high throughput and low latency. However, any existing mechanism that can guarantee computation integrity can be used in Aligned. For example, trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) like SGX, can also provide an efficient way to guarantee a computation was done correctly. This

All the proof aggregation solutions will use RISC-V zkVMs

In recent months, we have witnessed the development and enhancement of general proving virtual machines such as Risc0, Valida, Jolt, and SP1. These innovations allow users to write ordinary code in languages like Rust or C and generate proofs demonstrating the integrity of computations. This evolution is poised to transform

Elliptic Curve Pairings

Elliptic curve pairings play an important role in Ethereum’s Proof of Stake and in proof systems such as Groth16 and Plonk. They allow us to perform some sort of encrypted multiplication, crucial to aggregatable signatures and some polynomial commitment schemes. However, pairings seem shrouded in mystery and complexity. Read

Sumcheck Protocol

The Sumcheck protocol is an efficient tool to develop succinct arguments. It is relied upon by many proof systems, such as Lasso/Jolt by a16z crypto, HyperPlonk, Binius, Spartan, and GKR. Sumcheck was first proposed by Lund, Fortnow, Karloff, & Nisan in 1992. The sumcheck protocol is an interactive protocol

What are ZK-SNARKs?

SNARKs have gained considerable attention recently due to their broad utility in areas such as blockchain scalability, identity mechanisms, verifiable machine learning, and fighting against misinformation and fake news. We see new developments daily, but SNARKS have been around for a long time. SNARKs allow one party, the prover, to

A fast trust minimized intent based bridge solution for Ethereum and L2s powered by multi-proof storage proofs

Authors: Roberto Catalán and Federico Carrone Bridges are generally insecure and economically inefficient. They exhibit an asymmetry between users and bridge operators, where users can easily lose funds. We propose a bridge design that is simple, modular, and utilizes multi-storage proofs and the native messaging system between Ethereum and Layer