💀 The end of an Era?
Maybe it's dead, or maybe it's not.
🫡 Heads Up: We at ZKV have decided to change the design of our previous weekly Cosmos Newsletter and give this publication a broader perspective to bring you the latest news that matters across The Interchain. So that’s why it looks a bit different than what we shared with you before. Hope you like it. - The ZKV Team
⏰ Quick read
🏃♂️ More agile: Polkadot released its Agile Coretime upgrade which optimises Polkadot resource usage by enabling parachains to purchase flexible coretime allocations. It allows bulk buying, on-demand block validation, and secondary market resales, improving scalability, cost-efficiency, and network resource allocation.
🏄♂️ Dynamic Inflation: A post posted on the Cosmos Hub community forum proposed reform that suggests integrating the Liquid Staking Ratio (LSR) into Cosmos's inflation formula. By dynamically adjusting inflation based on staked liquidity, the system balances network security and economic activity, mirroring liquidity management in traditional finance.
☠️ Is Cosmos Dead?: In the latest episode of Zero Knowledge Podcast* hosted by our co-founder Anna Rose, Zaki Manian narrated the story of Cosmos and aired his opinions on the state of the ecosystem and the Cosmos Hub.
*ZKV and Zero Knowledge Podcast are separate entities.
📰 On the Headlines: Fast, fast, fast
Henry de Valence, co-founder of Penumbra, has proposed a method to accelerate ZK light client verification for Tendermint by optimising signature validation.
What’s there now?
In the current system, each signature is individually verified in stake-weight order until a 2/3+1 majority is reached.
What’s Henry’s idea?
De Valence suggests that if a verifier had prior knowledge of which signatures constituted the valid majority, it could perform a more efficient batch verification. Batch verification computes whether all signatures in a set are valid, which is cheaper than verifying each signature individually. This approach could reduce verification costs by over 50%.
And the challenge?
The challenge lies in determining the valid 2/3+1 majority, as this still requires individual checks. However, when applied within zero-knowledge systems, such as Tendermint light clients in ZK rollups, this "advice" can be calculated cheaply off-circuit. This reduces in-circuit verification costs, enhancing performance without compromising the security of the verification process.
👩🚀 Into the Outer Space: RISC-V ZKVMs
Argumenta published a blog post comparing RISC-V ZKVMs and EVM-specific ZKVMs, noting the Ethereum Foundation's focus on formal verification for RISC-V ZKVMs. It discusses RISC-V’s advantages in development speed and code reuse while also acknowledging concerns about performance optimization, reproducibility, and security. The post raises questions about the broader implications of RISC-V’s popularity in the ZKVM landscape.
👋 Ending note: We hope you like our new format and angle. If you have any feedback or suggestions, feel free to leave them here.