Proof Arena: A New Era in Zero-Knowledge Proof Benchmarking

We are thrilled to announce that the first set of benchmarks in Proof Arena is now live! This marks a significant milestone in our journey to revolutionize the world of zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) and empower developers to build more secure and efficient ZK applications.

What is Proof Arena?

Proof Arena is an innovative benchmarking platform designed to evaluate and compare different zero-knowledge provers. It provides a structured environment where developers can submit their prover implementations, which are then rigorously tested against a series of predefined problems. These problems represent specific computational challenges that applications frequently encounter and utilize zero-knowledge to solve.

The platform measures key performance metrics, including setup time, witness generation time, proof generation time, verification time, peak memory usage, and proof size. Each of these factors plays a crucial role depending on the application context:

• Proof Generation Time: Critical for real-time applications where processing speed heavily impacts user experience.
• Verification Time: Takes precedence in high-throughput systems that require quick verification of numerous proofs.
• Peak Memory Usage: Paramount in resource-constrained environments, ensuring effective allocation of limited resources.
• Proof Size: Key for data-intensive applications, ensuring scalability and efficiency.

By offering a transparent and competitive space for prover evaluation, Proof Arena aims to foster collaboration and innovation within the zero-knowledge community. Developers can gain insights into the performance of their solutions, identify areas for improvement, and contribute to the advancement of ZKP technology.

Proof Arena Adoption

The response to the release of Proof Arena has been tremendous over the past two months. Within the web3 space, teams from Polygon, Linea, and StarkWare have contributed to the platform to ensure that their proof systems—Plonky3, GNARK, and Halo2—are represented fairly and accurately.

In academia, Proof Arena has drawn the attention of some of the foremost experts in zero-knowledge cryptography, including Professor Dawn Song, co-Director of the UC Berkeley Center on Responsible Decentralized Intelligence, and Professor Dan Boneh, head of the applied cryptography group at Stanford.

“Proof Arena provides a long-awaited tool to compare different ZK provers on different tasks,” Professor Boneh shared. “Proof Arena updates every time a new prover version is released, and moreover, new provers can be easily added. This keeps the comparison current and up-to-date with the latest developments in the field.”

Results from the First Live Problem

We are excited to share the results from the initial set of problems evaluated with Proof Arena. The data collected provides valuable insights into the performance of various provers, showcasing their strengths and weaknesses. The significance of each performance metric varies based on the specific application context:

• Proof Generation Time: Essential in scenarios where real-time performance is critical, such as blockchain transactions or interactive applications. Long proof generation times can lead to delays, negatively impacting user experience.

• Verification Time: Particularly important in systems where many proofs need to be verified quickly, such as in batch processing or simultaneous user interactions. Faster verification times enhance overall system throughput.

• Peak Memory: In environments with limited resources, such as IoT devices or mobile applications, peak memory usage can be a critical factor. High memory consumption can lead to performance degradation or system crashes.

• Proof Size: Smaller proof sizes are beneficial for storage and transmission efficiency, especially in bandwidth-constrained environments. In blockchain applications, smaller proofs reduce the amount of data that needs to be stored and transmitted, which is vital for scalability.

In general, the performance of these four metrics will take precedence over setup time and witness generation time.

Deep Dive: Keccak256 Hashes

Keccak256 hashes, a member of the SHA-3 family, play a pivotal role in blockchain development due to their robust security and efficiency. As a cryptographic hash function, Keccak256 generates a fixed-size 256-bit output from input data of any length, ensuring that even the slightest change in the input results in a drastically different hash. This property is crucial for maintaining data integrity and authenticity on the blockchain, as it helps prevent tampering and ensures that transactions are securely linked to their corresponding data.

Given the significance of Keccak256 hashes in blockchain development, it is fitting that this is the first problem with performance metrics generated across a wide variety of provers. The results reveal that the Expander prover excels in proof generation time and peak memory usage, while Plonky3 achieves stellar performance in setup and verification time, and GNARK boasts the smallest proof size.

In use cases like bridging assets, where near real-time execution is critical, proof generation time is the primary consideration, which is why we developed Expander while building zkBridge.

The complete results for this problem, as well as others, can be viewed on the Proof Arena website here.

Diving deeper into the data, we observe a significant range in proof generation time. Expander leads the pack with approximately 16,700 proofs per second, followed by Plonky3 at 1,368, and GNARK and Halo2 at 4.5 and less than 1, respectively. In contrast, the spread between verification times is much narrower, with Expander verifying about 928 proofs per second and Plonky3 verifying 1,368.5 proofs per second.

While both proof generation time and verification time are important, there are specific contexts where proof generation time should take precedence, especially given the variance in proof generation performance. Real-time applications, high-volume transaction environments, and resource-constrained systems should seriously consider proof generation time when selecting the best prover for their use case.

Why This is Significant for Teams Utilizing Zero-Knowledge

The launch of Proof Arena and the results from the first live problems hold significant implications for teams leveraging zero-knowledge technology:

• Informed Decision-Making: With access to comprehensive performance data, developers can make informed decisions about which prover to use for their applications. This empowers teams to optimize their solutions based on real-world performance metrics.

• Enhanced Collaboration: Proof Arena fosters a collaborative environment where developers can share insights, learn from each other, and collectively advance the state of zero-knowledge proofs. This community-driven approach accelerates innovation and encourages best practices.

• Improved User Experience: By selecting the most efficient provers, teams can enhance the user experience of their decentralized applications (dApps). Faster verification times and smaller proof sizes lead to quicker transactions and lower costs, ultimately benefiting end-users.

• Driving Adoption: As more developers engage with Proof Arena and contribute their solutions, we anticipate a surge in the adoption of zero-knowledge technology across various industries. This will pave the way for more secure, scalable, and private applications, aligning with the core values of the Web3 movement.

Join Us on This Journey!

We invite all developers and teams interested in zero-knowledge proofs to explore Proof Arena, submit their provers, and participate in this exciting benchmarking initiative. Together, we can push the boundaries of what is possible with zero-knowledge technology and create a more secure and decentralized future.

Source: Proof Arena