In this episode, Anna and Kobi speak with Benedikt Bünz, Chief Scientist at Espresso Systems and Professor at NYU.
They start with a quick update on Espresso’s shared sequencer architecture, its role in rollup finality, and the challenges of building high-throughput blockchain infrastructure. The conversation then turns to Benedikt’s recent research on folding schemes, hash-based proof systems such as Arc and Warp, and Golden, a non-interactive distributed key generation protocol for threshold signatures.
The episode later explores Flock, a new proof system for standard hash functions such as Blake3 and SHA-256 that exceeds Ethereum’s post-quantum proving targets without relying on specialized hash functions. They conclude by discussing proof system performance, post-quantum cryptography, and the use of AI-assisted development in cryptographic engineering.
Related Links
- Bulletproofs — Short Proofs for Confidential Transactions and More
- Protostar — Generic Efficient Accumulation/Folding for Special-Sound Protocols
- HyperPlonk — Plonk with Linear-Time Prover and High-Degree Custom Gates
- Nova — Recursive Zero-Knowledge Arguments from Folding Schemes
- Arc — Accumulation for Reed–Solomon Codes
- Warp — Hash-Based Folding Schemes for Accumulation (coming soon)
- Golden: Lightweight Non-Interactive Distributed Key Generation
- Flock — High-Speed Batch Proofs for Standard Hash Functions (coming soon)
- TensorSwitch — Nearly Optimal Polynomial Commitments from Tensor Codes
- Bolt: Faster SNARKs from Sketched Codes
- Ligero — Lightweight Sublinear Arguments Without Trusted Setup
Systems and Infrastructure
Additional Reading
- Vitalik Buterin — The Splurge: Post-Quantum Ethereum
- Accumulation without Homomorphism
- Neo and SuperNeo: Post-Quantum Folding with Pay-Per-Bit Commitments
- Espresso’s HotShot: A Consensus Protocol Designed for Rollups
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