jakiro
Author: NingNing, Source: Author Twitter @0xNing0x
The Pectra upgrade is a milestone event that is bigger than the Ethereum Cancun upgrade.According to the upgrade content determined by the current Ethereum developer meeting, the next Pectra upgrade of the Ethereum main network will greatly accelerate the modularization process of Ethereum.
The Pertra upgrade will directly benefit projects in tracks such as modularity, chain abstraction and ZK Prover network.We will not repeat the modularity and chain abstraction. Today we will focus on the ZK Prover network.
Like blockchain technology, ZK technology is a “machine that creates trust”, and the difference is that they implement it differently.Blockchain realizes trust and relies on a distributed ledger system with consensus mechanism.ZK uses complex cryptography engineering to achieve trust.
The implementation mechanism of blockchain makes the blockchain “impossible triangle”, and the resources on the chain are scarce and precious, limiting the scalability of blockchain.Therefore, there are two major trends in blockchain improving scalability. One is to modularize light nodes to be responsible for block verification, and the other is to transfer trust calculations to off-chain and use ZK to implement them.
Currently, the main application scenarios of ZK include: data availability verification of ZK Rollup, ZK cross-chain bridge relay layer, zkML computational integrity proof, and ZK oracle price information verification.
In addition, Pectra’s upgraded Verkel tree transformation will introduce KZG’s promise to help achieve statelessness of the Ethereum main network.
Although ZK technology is powerful, there are currently problems such as ZKP generation taking too long and Prover centralization.
Therefore, the hardware-accelerated and decentralized Prover network generated by ZKP has become a new popular track in the ZK field after ZK Rollup in the primary market.
Recently, Succinct @SuccinctLabs and Cysic @cysic_xyz of this track have completed a $55M and $12M financing respectively.
Taking Cysic @cysic_xyz as an example, the team has the ability to design ZK hardware accelerated chips. On this basis, the ZK proof layer Cysic Network is recommended.
The Cysic Network stack consists of three parts: settlement layer, computing layer, and Agent layer.
The settlement layer consists of two parts: VC (Verification Committee) and a serializer network.VC is responsible for checking the validity of Prover generation proofs of the computing layer.The sequencer network is responsible for executing and updating status data.
The Computing Layer is a licenseless Prover hardware network that people can join using GPU or Cysic’s Asic hardware.
The Agent (Operator) layer is a ZK mission market, composed of projects such as ZK Rollup, ZK cross-chain bridge, zkML, and ZK oracle.
The workflow of Cysic Network is very concise. The Agent layer project publishes the ZK proof task, the calculation layer generates the ZKP proof, and the settlement layer verifies the ZKP proof.
Since the ZKP generation service market is still in its early stages, the hardware depreciation, power costs, operation and maintenance costs of Prover, which cannot be covered by the benefits generated, the ZK Prover network needs to raise funds from the market by issuing coins, and then use PoW to convert it.Tokens are rewarded to Prover nodes to facilitate adoption of the ZKP Prover network.
Finally, let’s look forward to it. For example, the Cancun upgrade catalyzes a batch of L2s with billions to tens of billions of FDVs, and the Pertra upgrade will also catalyzes a batch of ZK Prover networks with billions to tens of billions of FDVs.
