Presentation by Iryna from RISC Zero

RISC Zero is a zkVM system that can run general-purpose verifiable code.

As any VM, it has a set of instructions: 32-bit RISC-V, an open standard instruction set architecture (ISA) based on established reduced instruction set computer (RISC) principles.

For the zk part, it utilizes STARK. Read more in the official documentation.

Two main parts from the developer’s perspective are:

  • Host code, which the Prover or the Verifier will use.
  • Guest code, which defines the program to verify.

Lifecycle

  1. Guest code, which is a Rust program, is being compiled into RISC-V ELF binary.
  2. Host code then takes the binary and inputs and generates a receipt.
  3. The receipt can be sent to a Verifier to check whether the execution was correct. zkVM Architecture

Code example

You can see one in Homework 22. It’s quite easy to set up. Check out the Hello World tutorial if you want to complete it yourself.

Proving-as-a-service

RISC Zero also provides a distributed proving service, Bonsai, that can be used to execute computation-heavy zkVM.

Zeth

The team won the RFP#61 bid by Optimism to build a zk Fraud Proof program. Zeth is an implementation of EVM in zkVM.