Measuring Speed in Blockchain: Introducing the Proof Arena

The Complexity of Measuring Speed in Blockchain

One of the exciting aspects of watching Olympic swimming competitions is the straightforwardness in determining the fastest swimmer. Competitors dive into the same pool, swim their hearts out, and at the conclusion of the final lap, one individual touches the wall first, claiming victory. However, this simplicity is starkly contrasted in the world of blockchains, where engineers are constantly unveiling increasingly powerful and faster systems. The landscape is made even more intricate by the diversity of use cases and transaction types that differ from one project to another, along with the various tools and methods employed to gauge performance.

This complexity also extends to the designers of cryptographic tools, particularly when it comes to the numerous ways of reporting hashes per second. Against this backdrop, the Polyhedra Network—an innovative team focused on developing a crucial blockchain component known as a cryptographic “prover”—embarked on a mission to create a new platform called “Proof Arena.” This platform aims to serve as a testing ground for various proof systems.

Just a few months prior, the Polyhedra team launched an open-source zero-knowledge proof system, which is often utilized in auxiliary blockchains referred to as “layer 2s.” This system was touted as being “nearly 2x faster than its counterparts.” But how did they arrive at this conclusion? Eric Vreeland, the Chief Strategy Officer at Polyhedra, explained that the team decided to develop Proof Arena to provide developers with a controlled environment to assess different provers. This initiative is designed to facilitate evaluations of the performance of various proof systems for specific proof generation tasks.

According to a press release, “Proof Arena will enable creators of ZK-proof systems to compare their solutions against others in a clear and scientific manner while ensuring that all controllable variables remain constant.” The outputs generated by the testing system encompass proof generation time, peak memory usage, and setup time, as elaborated by Vreeland.

To illustrate, builders of the provers can submit their systems “for inclusion in the arena,” Vreeland noted. Initially, the project will focus on generating benchmarks for Polyhedra’s own “Expander” ZK-proof system, alongside Polygon’s Plonky3, StarkWare’s Stwo, and Linea’s Gnark.

The team has ambitious plans to support all open-source proof systems and will provide benchmarks for frequently executed ZK tasks such as Keccak and Poseidon hash verification, tested across a range of machine configurations. While this may sound like technical jargon to some, for cryptographers, it represents the core of their interests and challenges. The platform offers a valuable opportunity for experts to demonstrate their capabilities in a competitive and innovative environment.