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ZK, ZK-VM and ZK-EVM

In order to understand the technical characteristics behind each project on the ZK track, let us first understand the basic concepts related to ZK.

ZKP (Zero Knowledge Proof) stands for zero-knowledge proof, which refers to solving the privacy and expansion problems of the blockchain through mathematical cryptography, mainly through the certifier and verifier to verify the correctness of the data without disclosing the data.

ZK-VM is a virtual machine based on zero-knowledge proof, which combines zero-knowledge proof ZK and virtual machine VM (Virtual Machine). ZK-VM generally consists of two important components: one is the compiler (Compiler), which can compile high-level languages ​​such as C++ and Rust into intermediate expressions (IR) for the ZK system to prove; the other is the instruction set framework ISA (Instruction Set Architecture), the instruction set mainly instructs CPU operations, and is a series of instruction sets used to guide the CPU to perform operations.

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Recent ZK track new financing projects worthy of attention

Nil Foundation

Nil FoundationThe full name is "=nil; Foundation", which is a bit of gibberish. In fact, this strange name comes from a SQL injection joke.

Founded in 2018, Nil Foundation started out as a database management system. At the end of last year, it completed a financing of US$22 million at a valuation of US$220 million, led by Polychain Capital, with participation from Blockchain Capital, Starkware, Mina Protocol, and IOSG Ventures.

The Nil Foundation has built a ZK circuit compiler based on LLVM, which can compile programs written in high-level languages ​​such as C++ and Rust into appropriate intermediate representations (IRs) for ZK system proofs. That is, Nil Foundation is a circuit compiler, not a virtual machine.

LLVM (LowLevelVirtualMachine) is a framework system for framing compilers, which can optimize the compilation and runtime of programs written in high-level languages ​​such as Rust and C++. LLVM was originally developed in 2000 by Dr. Chris Lattner at the University of Illinois. After joining Apple in 2006, Chris Lattner began to devote himself to the application of LLVM in the development system. At present, LLVM has been adopted by major companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Facebook.

In addition, the Nil Foundation has a special place in that it has established a "Proof Market". Through the Proof Market, users can pay people who own hardware to verify for them, and the provers compete to prove for the users who pay them. Computationally, this free market dynamic will allow provers to optimize the most valuable proof tasks.

Sovereign Labs

Focus on building the ZK-Rollup SDKSovereign LabsIt closed a $7.4 million seed round in January, led by Haun Ventures, with participation from Maven 11, 1KX, Robot Ventures, and Plaintext Capital.

Sovereign Labs plans to build a software development kit (SDK) to help developers create secure and interoperable zero-knowledge rollups. The Sovereign SDK aims to simplify the creation of ZK-Rollups, just as the Cosmos SDK simplifies the creation of Layer 1. It is the first aggregation framework that removes the complexity of zero-knowledge, making it easy for developers to build their applications without developers needing to be experts in cryptography. Using the Sovereign SDK, developers will be able to write applications in idiomatic Rust (or C++), and the SDK will automatically compile them into an efficient ZK virtual machine.

Sovereign Labs' roadmap is divided into 3 parts. The first phase is to complete the research design prototype in the second quarter of 2023. The current prototype integrates Celestia for data availability and Risc 0 for proof. The second stage is the deployment of the Sovereign SDK, including the peer-to-peer network, RPC nodes, core API, and default storage and ordering modules. The third stage is to conduct code cleanup, testing, fuzzing and auditing.

Ulvetanna

Ulvetanna A startup building hardware to improve the efficiency of zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) generation has completed a $15 million seed round at a $55 million valuation, co-led by Bain Capital Crypto and Paradigm, with participation from Jump Crypto .

Ulvetanna is building hardware designed to speed up the process of generating ZKPs, and Ulvetanna's team includes programmers and engineers from Coinbase, Microsoft, and Intel.

As the demand for ZKP increases in the future, ZKP requires a lot of calculations, which requires powerful hardware and consumes a lot of power. Ulvetanna believes that ZKP generation is much more efficient on purpose-designed hardware, so Ulvetanna assembled an experienced team of applied cryptographers, software and hardware engineers, data center and cloud architects, and crypto-native investors, Provide efficient ZKP hardware computing services by combining cryptography and high-performance computing.

Cysic

ZK hardware startupCysicCompleted a $6 million seed round in December 2022, led by Polychain Capital, with other investors including Hashkey, SNZ Holding, ABCDE, and the Web3.com Foundation.

Cysic aims to provide a hardware accelerated solution for ZK proofs. Current Cysic partners include Scroll, Nil Foundation and Hyper Oracle.

The Cysic team developed an FPGA prototype of Multiscalar Multiply (MSM), which is a form of programmable hardware similar to CPU and GPU chips (less power-efficient than running MSM on a CPU).

Hyper Oracle

ZK oracle networkHyper OracleRecently completed a $3 million seed round of financing co-led by dao 5 and Sequoia China Seed Fund, followed by Foresight Ventures and FutureMoney Group.

Hyper Oracle is developing the ZK middleware protocol and the ZK oracle machine zkOracle based on the zkWASM virtual machine to solve the challenges of blockchain middleware in terms of security, decentralization, computational integrity and performance.

Polyhedra

Recent ZK Infrastructure StartupsPolyhedra Network Closed $10M funding round co-led by Binance Labs and Polychain Capital, with participation from Animoca Brands and Dao 5.

Polyhedra currently develops 3 ZK products based on ZK technology: including the ZK Bridge (zkBridge) for L1 and L2 asset transmission; ZK-DID, a user identity solution that uses zero-knowledge proof technology to protect privacy; a programmable NFT protocol ZK-NFT, this product uses zero-knowledge proof technology to protect the privacy of user assets. At present, the zkBridge test network has been launched. In addition, Polyhedra has also developed a scaling solution called ParaPlonk, which can use a large-scale distributed proof generation network to accelerate ZK rollups. Polyhedra plans to integrate more blockchains and make it easy for developers to access through API and SDK tools to attract more ZK-rollup developers.

RISC ZERO

RISC Zero(The financing information has not yet been announced) is an open source general-purpose ZK-VM. The name of the project originated from the popular RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer). RISC Zero adopts the latest 5th generation RISC-V. The idea of ​​the RISC-V instruction set is to maximize the reduced instruction set, which only contains more than 40 instruction sets. Because of the RISC-V instruction set, RISC Zero supports advanced programming languages ​​such as C++, Rust, and Go, and developers can use ZK-VM without learning new languages.

RISC Zero product growth VP Manasi (former Uniswap growth director) said that RISC Zero will also support Solidity, so RISC Zero will be more friendly to native Ethereum developers. In terms of language compilation, RISC ZERO adopts the LLVM architecture used by many major manufacturers. From the perspective of technical route, RISC ZERO may become a typical project on the ZK-VM track because of the adoption of a relatively mature compilation and instruction set solution.

Development direction of ZK track

Last year, the projects on the ZK track mainly focused on ZK-EVM compatible with Ethereum, such as Starknet, zkSync, Scroll and other popular projects. Judging from the types of ZK projects that have been financed recently, they are basically based on the infrastructure level, such as ZK circuit compilers, ZK hardware acceleration, ZK oracles and bridges.

At the same time, these projects also showed a trend, that is, the number of ZK-VM projects began to increase. In fact, by introducing the ZK proof system, ZK-VM can help a large number of Web2.0 applications combine zero-knowledge proofs to enter Web3. For example, the current Gamefi backend service for managing user data is centralized. If the backend uses ZK-VM, the game can achieve true decentralization. By analogy, many Web2.0 applications can be decentralized if necessary.

Which is the future, ZK-EVM or ZK-VM? Although applications on Ethereum will gradually support ZK-EVM, Web3 is not limited to Ethereum, because ZK-VM supports more advanced languages ​​and is easier to build than ZK-EVM (ZK-VM can use mature Compiler and instruction set architecture), if ZK-VM can also support Solidity well, maybe ZK-VM is the future of Web3.