Supercharging Smart Contracts: ZK Coprocessors and Verifiable Compute

Key Insights

• Due to the constrained compute environment of the EVM, zero knowledge (ZK) coprocessors have emerged as a solution to enable applications to securely move complex logic offchain.
• Applications that leverage ZK coprocessors would thereby enjoy the benefits of harnessing more compute power while verifying the results onchain and avoiding new trust assumptions.
• Even with ZK coprocessors in the earliest stages of its growth cycle, specific verticals of development are beginning to form, including general computation, interoperability, and machine learning (ML).
• Given the high costs associated with ZK technology, applications may need to scale up in terms of users and value before ZK coprocessors are economically viable.
• However, advancements in ZK technology coupled with better developer tooling will continue lowering the barriers to accessing ZK coprocessors.

Ethereum, or more broadly, the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), is often referred to as “The World Computer.” Yet, despite its namesake, EVM developers and applications have instead progressively opted for more specialized computing environments due to several limitations of the EVM. Computation on Ethereum is expensive; a simple swap can easily cost more than $10, and the costs only increase with more complex DeFi or gaming applications. The EVM also lacks a feasible mechanism to securely access historical, onchain data. Meanwhile, developers need infrastructure that can stand up to computationally intensive tasks as well as a way to access the vast amounts of data serving these computations.