ZK Advancements & Verkle Trees Progress

• Buterin’s blog post on Ethereum’s future has sparked enthusiastic discussions involving Jeremy Bruestle and Paolo Rebuffo.
• Bruestle emphasized RISC Zero’s pivotal role in shaping the zk-enabled future.
• Rebuffo highlighted the need for a timely decision on incorporating Verkle Trees into clients

Vitalik Buterin’s blog post on the future of Ethereum has generated enthusiastic discussions in the blockchain community. Jeremy Bruestle, CEO and co-founder of RISC Zero, a zero-knowledge verifiable general computing platform, highlighted the project’s innovative work in ZK technology. He pointed out RISC Zero’s key role in shaping the ZK-enabled future. Buterin’s response to these comments highlights the importance of these advancements.

In the blog post “Possible Futures of the Ethereum Protocol,” Buterin shared his thoughts on the blockchain’s “The Verge” upgrade. The upgrade is a vital step for decentralization, making the network more accessible, especially for running a full-verifying node. With the update’s potential impact on the Ethereum blockchain, crypto enthusiasts are optimistic about The Verge.

RISC Zero’s Contribution to ZK Technology

Bruestle explained that RISC Zero has already implemented features essential for the future of ZK. He noted that one of the features mentioned in the article—parallel proving via linking memory states of a single long-running computation—is already in place. This shows their commitment to advancing ZK technology.

Responding to the RISC Zero founder’s post, Buterin acknowledged the significance of compression efficiency. He stated that processing 1 MB of data in 1 second requires approximately 16,000 compression functions per second. He added that achieving one more order of magnitude improvement (160,000 funcs/sec) would be a significant milestone, saying, “Appreciate your work.”

In another exchange, crypto enthusiast Paolo Rebuffo stressed the need for a timely decision on incorporating Verkle Trees into clients. He warned, “Resources are not infinite, and eventually, there will be other parts of the Ethereum roadmap to focus on.” Verkle Trees aim to enhance data storage and verification. Rebuffo believes the community must balance these benefits against resource constraints and potential timeline impacts.

Read also: Saylor vs. Buterin: Debate Erupts Over Bitcoin Self-Custody

In response to Rebuffo, Buterin explained that about 75% of the Verkle Tree implementation focuses on shared components like tree keys, gas cost adjustments, and transition processes. These features are the same across Verkle, Poseidon binary, and Blake binary implementations.