Beam Chain: "Ethereum 3.0"

The just-concluded 2024 Devcon conference was lively and extraordinary, with the Ethereum ecosystem gathering in Bangkok. During this period, Ethereum and related ecosystem projects released the latest developments and updates, igniting a series of new ideas, new trends, and new plans for the global Web3.

Of particular note is the 'Ethereum' 3.0 proposal plan released by Justin Drake, a researcher at the 'Ethereum' Foundation.

He proposed a Consensus layer upgrade proposal called 'ETH 3.0' by the community - Beam Chain [1]. The core idea is to reduce the calculation and communication burden of Validators with Zero-Knowledge Proof, drop the threshold required for Validators, so that more Validators can join the network to increase security, reduce redundant computation, and improve the overall efficiency of the network. In addition, Justin also wants to take the opportunity to transform the Consensus layer into Snark, to address the technical debt left in the Beacon chain due to era restrictions, and prepare for future quantum resistance requirements.

In Vitalik's The Verge roadmap, the Snarkification of ETH is one of the important tasks, which includes the transformation of the consensus layer and the execution layer into Zero-Knowledge Proof. In Vitalik's latest interpretation [2], Vitalik admitted that the transformation of the consensus layer is a challenge, which needs to be continuously considered and optimized in the subsequent work. The proposal of Beam Chain can be seen as Vitalik's response to how to Snarkify the consensus layer.

Beam Chain only follows the Consensus layer. However, making the Consensus layer Snark-friendly does not mean that all parts need to be transformed. The core of the Block chain is the State Transition Function, so the transformation only needs to Snarkify the State Transition Function, which happens to be the specialty of ZK. For the Consensus layer, the State Transition Function mainly includes three parts: the per-slot transition function, the per-block transition function, and the per-epoch transition function. These three State Transition Functions involve the execution of the Consensus Algorithm and Staking logic, Block proposals, verification of execution layer results correctness, Merkle Tree Root verification, Consensus signature verification/aggregation, hash function computation, stake and redemption operations involving account storage state access, and more. Snarkifying the Consensus layer essentially means Snarkifying the aforementioned operations. It is worth noting that in the route of Snarkifying the Consensus layer, Ethereum still prioritizes Decentralization and diversity, so it does not require ZK Algorithm and protocol, but leaves it to the Proposer's choice.

Image source:

Core Difficulty: Realtime Proving

The most core difficulty in realizing the Beam Chain concept is the improvement of proof efficiency, that is, how to compress the proof time of currently dozens or even hundreds of seconds to the second level. At the ZK Workshop II [3] held by AntChain OpenLabs, ZAN and Pharos on September 24th this year, guest speaker Justin shared a report titled "Realtime Proving", in which he proposed a solution to the performance bottleneck that is in line with the "ETH 3.0" concept. He encouraged the community to use ASIC acceleration methods to complete the entire process of Zero-Knowledge Proof Virtual Machine from evidence generation to proof on the chip, and to increase the proof generation time by more than ten times in the next few years, truly achieving Realtime Proving.

Empowering the Performance and Application of Zero-Knowledge Proof Technology: We've Been on the Road

AntChain OpenLabs has been committed to accelerating ZK proofs using hardware platforms such as GPU, FPGA, ASIC, etc. It has accelerated various ZK systems including Polygon ZKEVM Prover, Stone Prover, Halo 2, and Plonky 2, forming multiple FPGA IP and GPU acceleration solutions. Some core operators achieve an acceleration ratio of more than a hundred times.

The acceleration ratio of some operators based on CUDA in AntChain OpenLabs relative to CPU, as shown in Table (1).

( Table 1 )

Comparison of GPU-accelerated MSM implemented by AntChain OpenLabs and Open Source ICICLE (both with 4090 GPU), as shown in Table (二).

( Table 2 )

Performance comparison of GPU-accelerated Circle FFT implemented by AntChain OpenLabs and Open Source Stwo Prover on a 16-core CPU, as shown in Table (Three).

(Table 3)

In addition, AntChain OpenLabs is also committed to the application exploration of Zero-Knowledge Proof. In the direction of AI+ZK, it uses independently designed matrix multiplication Folding, Sumcheck protocol GPU+CPU collaborative optimization, efficient implementation of elliptic curves, and other technologies. Under 4 GPUs, the initial token generation time of zkLLM [4][5] (the original implementation does not include commitment and opening, and the performance is tested after adding commitment and opening, targeting the LLama-7 B model) is reduced from 4 hours to about 18 minutes.

AntChain OpenLabs continuously optimizes the performance and availability of large-scale verifiable computation based on GPU accumulation, and continues to make efforts in commitment scheme replacement and optimization, multi-instance folding, and multi-token proof generation. The goal is to build an efficient, user-friendly, AI-ecosystem friendly verifiable computation service, explore possible directions for the large-scale application of Zero-Knowledge Proof technology, and build a bridge between Web3 and AI application integration.

In the face of the threat of Quantum Computer, AntChain OpenLabs has also actively explored and transformed a post-quantum version cryptographic library based on OpenSSL [6], which supports multiple NIST standard post-Quantum Algorithms. In addition, facing the problem of more than 40 times storage expansion for post-quantum signature compared to ECDSA, through the Consensus process and low-latency memory access optimization, the TPS of anti-quantum blockchain can reach about 50% of the original chain.

It is worth following that the above technology exploration has been implemented in the software-hardware integrated acceleration solution Power Zebra () launched by ZAN. This solution accelerates and optimizes the commonly used operators for Zero-Knowledge Proof, including multiple scalar point multiplication MSM, number theoretic transform NTT, H polynomial solving, polynomial opening proof and other key components, fully utilizing the GPU's computing resources, storage bandwidth, and PCIe bandwidth, significantly improving computational efficiency. Prior to this, after the zkWASM Open Source community Delphinus Lab introduced ZAN's software-hardware integrated acceleration solution Power Zebra, GPU computing performance increased by over 20%, setting the highest record for similar services in the community.

Foresee

For a long time, the Ethereum community has mainly focused on various optimizations at the execution layer, including increasing BlockGasLimit, L2s and other strategies. Among these, the execution layer's Snarkization has long been completed with the help of L2 in the 'Rollup Centric' roadmap, reaping rich rewards. The idea of Beam Chain has opened the door to Snarkization at the consensus layer. With the introduction of Beam Chain, it is believed that it will guide and inspire the community to focus on the transformation of the consensus layer, bringing more exciting ideas.

It can be anticipated that the Snarkification of the consensus layer and execution layer will together complete the final puzzle of Ethereum Snarkification, making significant contributions to the scalability and decentralization of Ethereum. At the same time, with the advancement of the Beam Chain proposal, the Virtual Machine based on Zero-Knowledge Proof technology will play a core role in the Ethereum ecosystem. By introducing SNARK proofs and post-quantum cryptography, along with lower stake thresholds and faster block confirmation times, Beam Chain will bring stronger decentralization and higher performance to Ethereum.

Reference

[ 1 ]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]