Re: [bitcoin-dev] ZeroSync: Introducing Validity Proofs to Bitcoin

2023-08-28 Thread blk0 via bitcoin-dev 
Peter Todd wrote:

>Two serious issues with this proposal:

>1) You're creating an alternative implementation of the Bitcoin protocol. There
>is a _long_ history of such implementations failing to implement an exact copy
>of the consensus rules, leading to potential forks. Obviously, if only used by
>otherwise lite clients, there is less of a risk associated with this. But the
>risk is there and will expand as this tech is used for more sophisticated
>things.

There is a general purpose zkVM implementation for the RISC-V instruction set:

https://www.risczero.com/

Since Bitcoin Core can be compiled for RISC-V, and RiscZero can prove
execution traces of a RISC-V VM, this argument no longer applies: the exact
consensus rules would be applied and verified.

@blk014___
bitcoin-dev mailing list
bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org
https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev

Re: [bitcoin-dev] ZeroSync: Introducing Validity Proofs to Bitcoin

2023-06-05 Thread Erik Aronesty via bitcoin-dev 
"The sender
could store redundant copies of the encrypted transaction data with
multiple trust-
minimized middlemen, for the recipient to download when they come back
online."

sounds like a nostr event sent to a half dozen relays


On Fri, May 12, 2023, 9:15 AM Robin Linus via bitcoin-dev <
bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Today we are publishing a summary of our research on "ZeroSync:
> Introducing Validity Proofs to Bitcoin".
>
>
> Here's the preface:
>
> *We introduce ZeroSync, the first-ever proof system addressing Bitcoin’s
> scalability challenges with Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge
> (SNARKs). ZeroSync compresses the entire Bitcoin blockchain into a compact
> proof of validity, enabling instant verification and unlocking various
> innovative applications. We discuss our prototype implementation of a chain
> state proof, utilizing the Cairo language, Utreexo, and recursive STARKs.
> Our work enables diverse applications, including quick bootstrapping of
> full nodes, trustless light clients, enhanced Lightning Network privacy,
> and secure cross-chain bridges. Chain state proofs require no consensus
> changes, which is crucial as forks in Bitcoin are challenging to implement
> and achieve consensus for. Despite the existing bottleneck of prover
> performance, we present a range of optimization strategies and demonstrate
> the practicality of generating a complete chain state proof. *
> *Finally, we introduce zkCoins, a client-side validation protocol combined
> with zeroknowledge SNARKs, drastically improving privacy and throughput of
> token transactions. In combination with future Bitcoin features, such as
> Simplicity, zkCoins also enables private and more scalable BTC
> transactions. *
> *The groundbreaking compression capabilities of SNARKs initiated a
> paradigm shift in cryptocurrency design, and ZeroSync is pioneering their
> application to Bitcoin.*
>
>
> You can find the full paper here: https://zerosync.org/zerosync.pdf
> Happy to receive any comments and answer any questions the bitcoin dev
> community may have about the paper!
>
>
>
> Best regards,
> Robin Linus
> ___
> bitcoin-dev mailing list
> bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org
> https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
>
___
bitcoin-dev mailing list
bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org
https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev

Re: [bitcoin-dev] ZeroSync: Introducing Validity Proofs to Bitcoin

2023-06-05 Thread Peter Todd via bitcoin-dev 
On Fri, May 12, 2023 at 02:12:03PM +0200, Robin Linus via bitcoin-dev wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Today we are publishing a summary of our research on "ZeroSync: Introducing 
> Validity Proofs to Bitcoin".
> 
> 
> Here's the preface:
> 
> We introduce ZeroSync, the first-ever proof system addressing Bitcoin’s 
> scalability challenges with Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge 
> (SNARKs). ZeroSync compresses the entire Bitcoin blockchain into a compact 
> proof of validity, enabling instant verification and unlocking various 
> innovative applications. We discuss our prototype implementation of a chain 
> state proof, utilizing the Cairo language, Utreexo, and recursive STARKs. Our 
> work enables diverse applications, including quick bootstrapping of full 
> nodes, trustless light clients, enhanced Lightning Network privacy, and 
> secure cross-chain bridges. Chain state proofs require no consensus changes, 
> which is crucial as forks in Bitcoin are challenging to implement and achieve 
> consensus for. Despite the existing bottleneck of prover performance, we 
> present a range of optimization strategies and demonstrate the practicality 
> of generating a complete chain state proof. 
> Finally, we introduce zkCoins, a client-side validation protocol combined 
> with zeroknowledge SNARKs, drastically improving privacy and throughput of 
> token transactions. In combination with future Bitcoin features, such as 
> Simplicity, zkCoins also enables private and more scalable BTC transactions. 
> The groundbreaking compression capabilities of SNARKs initiated a paradigm 
> shift in cryptocurrency design, and ZeroSync is pioneering their application 
> to Bitcoin.
> 
> 
> You can find the full paper here: https://zerosync.org/zerosync.pdf 
> 
> Happy to receive any comments and answer any questions the bitcoin dev 
> community may have about the paper!

Two serious issues with this proposal:

1) You're creating an alternative implementation of the Bitcoin protocol. There
is a _long_ history of such implementations failing to implement an exact copy
of the consensus rules, leading to potential forks. Obviously, if only used by
otherwise lite clients, there is less of a risk associated with this. But the
risk is there and will expand as this tech is used for more sophisticated
things.

2) If the tech advances to the point where proof-generation is fast enough to
happen in real time, Bitcoin miners adopting it along with and other widepsread
adoption it may cause Bitcoin to lose its decentralization. At the heart,
Bitcoin's consensus is a proof of publication scheme: miners are (weakly)
forced to publish blocks by the fact that users and other miners demand blocks
to both validate their coins, and mine further. Without blocks themselves being
published on a timely basis, the censorship resistance of Bitcoin fails because
only a subset of miners actually have the necessary block data to create new
blocks with transactions in them. There's also other scenarios where these
capabilities could be abused, eg with "illegal data" being published in the
chain.

Re: #2, the Bitcoin technical community would be smart to find ways to *defeat*
ZKP schemes, with the goal of making it technologically infeasible to use them
for recently created blocks (eg the last few days worth).

-- 
https://petertodd.org 'peter'[:-1]@petertodd.org


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature
___
bitcoin-dev mailing list
bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org
https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev

Re: [bitcoin-dev] ZeroSync: Introducing Validity Proofs to Bitcoin

2023-05-12 Thread Robin Linus via bitcoin-dev 
Hi Weiji,

> Could you please expand more on how you plan to "implement a SNARK verifier 
> on Bitcoin’s base layer"?
First, I should clarify that I see this as a long-term option, which will take 
years. If Simplicity gets activated, we could use it to implement a SNARK 
verifier on Bitcoin's base layer. But for now, we just plan to experiment with 
Simplicity on the Liquid sidechain when it gets activated.


> For your information, I happen to be the one proposing a new opcode OP_ZKP to 
> enable the Bitcoin network to verify zkp proofs. My proposal requires a soft 
> fork. You may find more information from the email archive here: 
> https://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org/msg12601.html
>  
> 
I've seen it; however, I suppose it is hard to establish consensus over some 
particular kind of op_snark_verify opcode because there are so many competing 
proof systems with different trade-offs. For example, STARKs are great for a 
chain state proof as they are scalable and allow for processing huge circuits; 
however, I would not favor STARKs for an on-chain verifier because there are 
other proof systems, such as Plonky2, with much smaller proof sizes.

A nice thing about SNARK verifiers is that once we have any verifier, we can 
use it to wrap other proofs. E.g., we could "compress" the size of a STARK by 
verifying it in a Plonky2 proof.
Still, Simplicity offers much more flexibility and allows to update verifiers 
as the research advances.


> We might be tackling similar issues and probably could benefit from each 
> other. 

Sounds good! Please join our Telegram group, if you would like to chat about 
SNARKs on Bitcoin https://t.me/zerosync_chat 



Cheers,
Robin ___
bitcoin-dev mailing list
bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org
https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev

Re: [bitcoin-dev] ZeroSync: Introducing Validity Proofs to Bitcoin

2023-05-12 Thread Weiji Guo via bitcoin-dev 
Hi Robin,

Could you please expand more on how you plan to "implement a SNARK verifier
on Bitcoin’s base layer"?

For your information, I happen to be the one proposing a new opcode OP_ZKP
to enable the Bitcoin network to verify zkp proofs. My proposal requires a
soft fork. You may find more information from the email archive here:
https://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org/msg12601.html

We might be tackling similar issues and probably could benefit from each
other.

Thanks,
Weiji

On Fri, May 12, 2023 at 9:16 PM Robin Linus via bitcoin-dev <
bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Today we are publishing a summary of our research on "ZeroSync:
> Introducing Validity Proofs to Bitcoin".
>
>
> Here's the preface:
>
> *We introduce ZeroSync, the first-ever proof system addressing Bitcoin’s
> scalability challenges with Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge
> (SNARKs). ZeroSync compresses the entire Bitcoin blockchain into a compact
> proof of validity, enabling instant verification and unlocking various
> innovative applications. We discuss our prototype implementation of a chain
> state proof, utilizing the Cairo language, Utreexo, and recursive STARKs.
> Our work enables diverse applications, including quick bootstrapping of
> full nodes, trustless light clients, enhanced Lightning Network privacy,
> and secure cross-chain bridges. Chain state proofs require no consensus
> changes, which is crucial as forks in Bitcoin are challenging to implement
> and achieve consensus for. Despite the existing bottleneck of prover
> performance, we present a range of optimization strategies and demonstrate
> the practicality of generating a complete chain state proof. *
> *Finally, we introduce zkCoins, a client-side validation protocol combined
> with zeroknowledge SNARKs, drastically improving privacy and throughput of
> token transactions. In combination with future Bitcoin features, such as
> Simplicity, zkCoins also enables private and more scalable BTC
> transactions. *
> *The groundbreaking compression capabilities of SNARKs initiated a
> paradigm shift in cryptocurrency design, and ZeroSync is pioneering their
> application to Bitcoin.*
>
>
> You can find the full paper here: https://zerosync.org/zerosync.pdf
> Happy to receive any comments and answer any questions the bitcoin dev
> community may have about the paper!
>
>
>
> Best regards,
> Robin Linus
> ___
> bitcoin-dev mailing list
> bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org
> https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev
>
___
bitcoin-dev mailing list
bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org
https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev

[bitcoin-dev] ZeroSync: Introducing Validity Proofs to Bitcoin

2023-05-12 Thread Robin Linus via bitcoin-dev 
Hi all,

Today we are publishing a summary of our research on "ZeroSync: Introducing 
Validity Proofs to Bitcoin".


Here's the preface:

We introduce ZeroSync, the first-ever proof system addressing Bitcoin’s 
scalability challenges with Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge 
(SNARKs). ZeroSync compresses the entire Bitcoin blockchain into a compact 
proof of validity, enabling instant verification and unlocking various 
innovative applications. We discuss our prototype implementation of a chain 
state proof, utilizing the Cairo language, Utreexo, and recursive STARKs. Our 
work enables diverse applications, including quick bootstrapping of full nodes, 
trustless light clients, enhanced Lightning Network privacy, and secure 
cross-chain bridges. Chain state proofs require no consensus changes, which is 
crucial as forks in Bitcoin are challenging to implement and achieve consensus 
for. Despite the existing bottleneck of prover performance, we present a range 
of optimization strategies and demonstrate the practicality of generating a 
complete chain state proof. 
Finally, we introduce zkCoins, a client-side validation protocol combined with 
zeroknowledge SNARKs, drastically improving privacy and throughput of token 
transactions. In combination with future Bitcoin features, such as Simplicity, 
zkCoins also enables private and more scalable BTC transactions. 
The groundbreaking compression capabilities of SNARKs initiated a paradigm 
shift in cryptocurrency design, and ZeroSync is pioneering their application to 
Bitcoin.


You can find the full paper here: https://zerosync.org/zerosync.pdf 

Happy to receive any comments and answer any questions the bitcoin dev 
community may have about the paper!



Best regards,
Robin Linus___
bitcoin-dev mailing list
bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org
https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev