The Ethereum Foundation (EF) has announced a substantial financial commitment, investing “tens of millions” of dollars into advancing zero-knowledge Virtual Machines (zkVMs), a cutting-edge technology poised to enhance scalability and security within the Ethereum ecosystem.
Justin Ðrake, a researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, revealed the investment via a post on X: “The EF is investing tens of millions into zkVMs: verified-zkevm.org—zkRISC-V formal verification poseidon-initiative.info—Poseidon cryptanalysis ethproofs.org—L2beat for zkVMs, soon™ DM me about contributing to zkVM public goods :)”
Ethereum Foundation Invests Millions In zkEVM Research
The cornerstone of this investment is the zkEVM Formal Verification Project, detailed on verified-zkevm.org. This initiative aims to apply formal verification methods to zkEVMs, ensuring their reliability and security. According to the project overview, the EF seeks to achieve “bug-free zkEVMs” by distributing grants and bounties over an 18-24 month period across multiple stages.
“The project will raise awareness of formal verification methods applied to zkEVMs, document their application, and increase their use,” the project overview states. Additionally, it aims to enhance coordination among different teams within the ecosystem, develop tooling and standards for maintenance and extensibility, and investigate better integration of formal verification methods into software development and maintenance processes.
The project’s scope is confined to RISC-V zkVMs capable of running an EVM compiled to RISC-V, thereby producing a zkEVM. It is structured into three primary tracks:
RISC-V zkVM Track: Focuses on verifying the correct implementation of a RISC-V CPU, arithmetization, and circuits. It emphasizes ensuring that circuits are neither under-constrained nor over-constrained and that computations are accurate. Formal verification of precompiles is also included.
EVM Track: Aims to demonstrate that an EVM running on RISC-V adheres to the EVM specification. Candidates for verification must present performant and compilable EVM implementations on RISC-V zkVMs, such as revm/Reth.
Cryptography Track: Seeks to verify the specifications, security proofs, and implementations of cr
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Author: Jake Simmons
