- Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin recently published a new blog post.
- He highlighted that the permissionless decentralized validity-rollup Starkware can process 620,000 Poseidon2 hashes per second on an M3 chip notebook.
- Following Buterin’s disclosure, Starknet (STRK) prices surged by 7%.
Explore how Starkware’s groundbreaking capabilities are revolutionizing Ethereum scalability and efficiency.
Starkware’s Breakthrough in Computational Hash Processing
In his latest blog post, Vitalik Buterin outlined a significant advancement in the computational power of the Starkware ecosystem. He noted that with the use of an M3 chip notebook, Starkware’s technology could handle as many as 620,000 Poseidon2 hashes per second. This capability marks a monumental step forward in the realm of zero-knowledge proof systems, specifically for Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatibility.
Technical Complexity and Developer Adaptation
Buterin mentioned that circle STARKs introduce minimal additional complexity for developers compared to standard STARKs. He detailed that the key complexities during implementation are confined to just three main aspects as compared to regular FRI (Fast Reed-Solomon Interactive Oracle Proofs of Proximity). Despite the intrinsic mathematical principles of the “polynomials” used in circle FRI being counterintuitive and requiring a learning curve to fully grasp, these complexities are largely abstracted away from the developers.
Implications on Future STARK Optimization
The blog further elucidates that the integration and understanding of circle FRI and circle FFTs (Fast Fourier Transforms) can serve as a foundational introduction to other specialized FFTs. Examples include the binary-field FFTs employed in systems such as Binius and LibSTARK, and elliptic curve FFTs that integrate efficiently with elliptic curve point operations. Buterin also contemplates the confluence of binary-field methodologies like Mersenne31, BabyBear, and Binius, indicating that these methods are nearing the “fundamental layer” efficiency limits of STARKs. Future relentless progress in STARK optimizations is expected to focus on refining the arithmetic of these foundational principles, particularly hash functions and digital signatures, to maximize efficiency.
Conclusion
Vitalik Buterin’s latest insights underscore Starkware’s pivotal role in enhancing Ethereum’s scalability and security capabilities through advanced hash processing and zero-knowledge proofs. As the technology evolves, developers can anticipate more streamlined methods and increased computational efficiency, potentially driving broader adoption and innovation within the blockchain community.
