zkVM

Disclaimer: This page can be outdated.

Based on the research done by Porter Adams, core contributor to Matter Labs/ZKsync. (See video here)

zkVM Name	Succinct SP1 Hypercube	RISCZero	Brevis Pico	Lita’s Valida	a16z’s Jolt	Nexus zkVM3.0	ZKSync’s Boojum2.0
ZK tech name(s)	Plonky3		Plonky3 + more	Plonky3	Arkworks + Binius	Stwo
Arithmetization	AIR	AIR	AIR	AIR	R1CS	AIR	AIR
Proofs	STARK	STARK	STARK / CircleStark	STARK	Sumcheck	CircleSTARK	STARK
Commitments	FRI	FRI	FRI	FRI	Zeromorph		FRI
Prime Field	Baby-Bear	Baby-Bear	BabyBear / Mersenne31	Mersenne31		Mersenne31	Mersenne31
Memory Argument	Multi-set Hashing				Twist and Shout		Based on Two Shuffled Make a RAM
Instruction Set	RISC-V	RISC-V	RISC-V	Lita ISA	Risc-V	Risc-V	RISCV-32 I+M
Other thoughts	Extremely popular Easy to get started Good docs & examples product focused developer friendly	One of the first general-purpose zkVMs robust codebase zirgen language organized/ well-documented devs with long-term vision	Focused on modularity supports multiple proving backends enshrined app level co-processors focused on dev ex	The truly fastest custom instruction set architecture (ISA) modified from RISC-V to be more zk-friendly custom compiler (30x faster)	Unique cryptography choices Sumcheck 👀 Just One Lookup Table (JOLT) smallest + simplest codebase most likely to get fully formally verified (sumcheck easier to verifier than, say, FRI)	Goal of processing 1 trillion Hz/s Switched from folding schemes and elliptic curve groups (Nova/Hypernova/Jolt & Ristretto 255 for Nexus zkVM2.0) to Stwo uses "Harvard architecture in which the program being executed resides in a read-only memory space separate from the data."	Make devs happy separated proof system from the execution layer Full EVM equivalent should come out summer 2025 fast and cheap tx for users 4th full re-write of zk proof sytem

ETH proofs! - a site to determine who is proving ETH blocks for the cheapest cost and the fastest

Other projects not covered here include:

• Linea’s zkEVM

• Polygon’s Miden

• Starknet’s Cairo

• Scroll’s Ceno

• Aztec (needs client-side proving for privacy)

• Projects that modularize type of VM to use:

  • powdr

  • OpenVM