RISC Zero Blog
Learn about RISC Zero's technology, research, and latest developments.
Why Kailua Unlocks Fast Finality
We announced Kailua, a hybrid dispute game for optimistic rollups. Our announcement of potential 1-hour finality sparked both excitement and questions from the community. Let's dive into what this means and address the key questions.
Boundless: Road to Mainnet
Boundless is the first universal ZK protocol bringing abundant compute to all blockchains. Learn more about the vision and our road to mainnet.
Kailua: How it Works
Learn how Kailua brings the best of Optimistic and ZK rollups with a third “hybrid” option. With its first implementation backed by Optimism’s Kona rollup state transition engine.
Introducing Kailua by RISC Zero: A Hybrid Architecture for OP Rollups
Kailua combines the best of optimistic and ZK rollups. Instead of proving every transaction (which costs millions) or waiting 7 days for finality, Kailua uses ZK proofs only during disputes.
Introducing Steel 1.0
Steel is a production-ready EVM smart contract execution prover designed to bring boundless runtime to all EVM apps. Using execution proofs, Steel enables EVM apps to run completely offchain, while preserving onchain security.
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Introducing Boundless: The Verifiable Compute Layer
Introducing Boundless: The Verifiable Compute Layer. Boundless shatters traditional blockchain limits, enabling unlimited off-chain execution with on-chain security. Using zero-knowledge proofs, we empower developers to build rich dApps rivaling web2 experiences while maintaining blockchain's security guarantees.
Designing high-performance zkVMs
Explore the proof systems behind RISC Zero’s zkVM, including innovations like 0STARK and continuations. Learn how high-level languages like Rust are shaping zkVM development, with a focus on performance improvements through accelerators and cost reductions. The blog also covers emerging technologies like JOLT and Circle STARKs, highlighting RISC Zero’s focus on engineering solutions for scalability and efficiency.
Powering the Modular Expansion with Blobstream Zero
RISC Zero and Celestia’s Blobstream Zero bridge will enable ZK proof and verification of Celestia’s data on any chain, unlocking new possibilities for modular applications. Open-source and Rust-based, it’s designed for easy upgrades and extensive modularity.
zkVM Performance Upgrades Roadmap - Q3 2024
Over the last quarter, we improved zkVM 1.0's performance with a 10x cost reduction, industry-leading benchmarks, and key advancements in GPU proving and accelerator circuits, setting ambitious goals for continued innovation and efficiency in Q3 2024 and beyond. Is this conversation helpful so far?
zkVM 1.0: Industry-Leading Performance Benchmarks
RISC Zero's zkVM 1.0 outperforms competitors in efficiency, cost, and speed, with continuous improvements ensuring it remains the leader in zkVM performance.
zkVM 1.0 is Live
Today, RISC Zero launches zkVM 1.0, the world's first and most performant general-purpose zkVM, offering significant cost-efficiency, performance, stable APIs, enhanced expressivity, boundless compute, interoperability, and advanced zero-knowledge features for scalable and innovative blockchain applications.
Scaling Bitcoin with Citrea
Citrea uses RISC Zero's technology to create a zkRollup that addresses Bitcoin's challenges of high fees, slow transaction times, and limited programmability, enhancing its scalability and security for diverse onchain applications.
Zeth Brings Validity Proofs to Optimism’s OP Stack
Explore the seamless integration of Zeth’s zkVM technology with Optimism’s infrastructure, enabling reliable block building and dispute resolution, revolutionizing the Optimistic Rollup and Superchain ecosystems.
RISC Zero Takes The Rekt Test
Discover how RISC Zero excels in privacy-preserving computation, passing the rigorous Rekt Test and showcasing top-tier security practices that redefine industry standards.
Verifying RISC Zero’s Trusted Setup Ceremony
Learn about the rigorous process behind RISC Zero’s trusted setup ceremony, ensuring the integrity and security of our zkVM through comprehensive community participation and detailed verification steps.
Introducing Steel
Experience the future of Ethereum development with Steel, leveraging the RISC Zero zkVM to execute Solidity smart contracts, access historical state, and perform off-chain computations securely and efficiently, all while reducing gas fees and eliminating block size limitations.
ScalingETH Async Hackathon 2024 Recap
Explore the innovative projects and winning solutions from the ETHGlobal ScalingETH async hackathon, where RISC Zero’s $10k bounty distribution celebrated advancements in zero-knowledge technology and decentralized applications, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in the zk ecosystem.
How to Leverage RISC Zero’s zkVM to Scale Bitcoin
Learn how our zkVM and zero-knowledge proofs are transforming Bitcoin’s scalability, allowing developers to build powerful, verifiable applications in Rust, and driving innovations with projects like Citrea, BOB, and Syscoin’s Rollux.
Ceremony contribution public instructions
Dive into the details of RISC Zero’s successful trusted setup ceremony. Our comprehensive guide highlights the process contributors followed to secure our Groth16 STARK to SNARK circuit, showcasing the collaborative effort that fortified our mainnet verifier contract.
The 4 Features of a zkVM: How to Choose your ZK Toolkit
Learn the four essential features of a zkVM and how RISC Zero makes ZK development accessible, efficient, and ready for production. Choose the right toolkit for your ZK project.
zkVM Performance Upgrades Roadmap - Q1, Q2 2024
Discover the impactful performance optimizations achieved for RISC Zero’s zkVM in early 2024. These upgrades, including 7-10x improvements through global enhancements and specialized accelerator circuits, have significantly boosted proving performance and supported advanced cryptographic operations.
Jeremy Bruestle Steps Into the Role of CEO
RISC Zero announces Jeremy Bruestle as its new CEO. Jeremy, a co-founder and former Chief Cryptographer, brings extensive expertise to his new role, aiming to lead the company through its next phase of growth and technological innovation in the zero-knowledge space.
ETHDenver 2024 Recap
RISC Zero awarded over $20K in bounties and showcased groundbreaking zkVM technology at ETHDenver 2024 through workshops, talks, and innovative hackathon projects.
Decentralized Identity Verification with zkKYC and Soulbound NFTs
Revolutionize KYC with zkKYC: Prove your identity privately and securely with zero-knowledge proofs and soulbound NFTs. The future of privacy-focused verification starts here.
When the Doom Music Kicks In
Experience DOOM in ZK: See how RISC Zero’s zkVM runs the iconic game, proving our tech’s power and versatility. A fun showcase of zero-knowledge proof potential.
Proof Composition: Unlocking Recursion and Modularity for ZK Developers
Explore how RISC Zero’s proof composition feature allows developers to create complex, scalable applications by verifying proofs within zkVM programs, revolutionizing zero-knowledge proof capabilities and privacy solutions.
Doubling Down on Open Source at RISC Zero
We’re open-sourcing our cutting-edge zkVM technologies, empowering developers with High-Speed Recursion, Proof Composition, and STARK to SNARK Wrappers. Build faster, scale further, and innovate with integrity.
Bridging Web2 and Web3 with Bonsai Pay: A Bonsai-powered Demo Application
Experience seamless Ethereum transactions using your Google account with Bonsai Pay, leveraging RISC Zero’s zkVM for secure, user-friendly blockchain integration.
Snarkifying Ethereum: The Future of Scalability and Security
Discover how RISC Zero’s Zeth and zero-knowledge proofs are revolutionizing Ethereum’s scalability and security, making the network more decentralized and efficient than ever before.
The Odd Couple: ZK and Optimistic Rollups on a Scalability Date
AltLayer and RISC Zero team up to revolutionize optimistic rollups by integrating on-demand ZK fraud proofs, combining the best of ZK and fault proof technologies for enhanced scalability and security.
RISC Zero is bringing ZK to the OP Stack
RISC Zero integrates zKp into the OP Stack, enhancing security and scalability for Optimism while maintaining compatibility with existing frameworks.
Scaling Onchain DAO Governance with Bonsai zk Coprocessor
Leverage our Bonsai zk Coprocessor to drastically cut gas costs for DAOs, enabling fully verifiable off-chain governance with Ethereum’s security.
A Guide to ZK Coprocessors for Scalability
Discover how Bonsai ZK coprocessors can drastically reduce gas fees and scale your on-chain logic by securely verifying off-chain computation.
Rust but Verify: Provable Machine Learning with RISC Zero
Discover how RISC Zero’s zkVM leverages the Rust-based SmartCore machine learning crate to enable secure, privacy-preserving ML model inference and training for DeFi applications.
Announcing Zeth: The First Type Zero zkEVM
Experience Zeth, an open-source ZK block prover for Ethereum built on RISC Zero’s zkVM, enabling verifiable Ethereum block construction in minutes with full protocol compatibility.
Honey, I Shrunk the Proof: Enabling On-chain Verification for RISC Zero & Bonsai
Verified our first proof on Ethereum’s Sepolia Testnet, enabling complex app logic off-chain with minimal gas costs.
RISC Zero Raises $40 Million Series A Round
RISC Zero secures $40 million in Series A funding, led by Blockchain Capital, to advance its zero-knowledge virtual machine technology and bring its Bonsai computing platform to market. This funding will help developers build trustless, scalable applications with ease.
Using Continuations to Prove Any EVM Transaction
Our zkVM now supports continuations, enabling the proof of any EVM transaction by splitting large programs into smaller, independently computable segments, ensuring scalability and efficiency.
zkEVM vs zkVM: a Single Letter Can Make a Big Difference!
This post explores how a single letter can significantly change the context of virtual machines in blockchain technology. We'll cover EVM, zkEVM, and zkVM. While zkEVMs enable off-chain execution of Solidity applications, RISC Zero's zkVM and the forthcoming Bonsai network offer the ability to create scalable, chain-agnostic code in Rust.
Revolutionizing DeFi Security: ZK Proof of Exploit on RISC Zero
Discover zkPoEX, the ETHDenver-winning project using RISC Zero’s zkVM to secure DeFi through zero-knowledge proofs. Enhance collaboration and security in DeFi today.
Where's Waldo on RISC Zero
Prove you know Waldo’s location without revealing it, using RISC Zero’s zkVM. A playful yet powerful example of zero-knowledge proof capabilities in action.
Introducing RISC Zero
RISC Zero launches the first fully open-source general-purpose ZK computing platform, enabling developers to build zero-knowledge proofs using familiar languages like Rust and C++.