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1 month ago | 
a16zcrypto.com | Dan Boneh |Justin Thaler |Sonal Chokshi
This episode is all about quantum computing — explaining what it is, how it works, what’s hype vs. reality, and how to prepare for it/ what builders should do. Specifically, we cover:What quantum computing is and isn’t, and what people are really talking about when they worry about a quantum computer that can break cryptographic systems that are not secure against quantum attacks.
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Nov 20, 2024 | 
a16zcrypto.com | Justin Thaler
zkVMs and Jolt: A short recapzkVMs are SNARKs that allow an untrusted prover to prove that it correctly ran some specified computer program on a witness, where the program is specified as bytecode conforming to a particular instruction set architecture (ISA) like RISC-V. zkVMs offer the most promising path to usable and maintainable SNARKs. They allow developers to write programs in whatever high-level language they please, so long as the language comes with a compiler down to the ISA’s bytecode.
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Nov 12, 2024 | 
a16zcrypto.com | Justin Thaler
An update on Jolt, a state-of-the-art zkVM released by the a16z crypto team in April, 2024. VIDEO
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Jun 3, 2024 | 
a16zcrypto.com | Justin Thaler
Justin Thaler Lasso + Joltresearch We’ve been making steady progress on Lasso and Jolt – our new, simple, performant lookup argument and zkVM — starting with the theory papers and Lasso implementation last summer, and since releasing a fully open source implementation of Jolt last month. The implementation has shown Jolt’s promise relative to existing technology and challenged much of the conventional wisdom in SNARK design.
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May 2, 2024 | 
a16z.com | Justin Thaler |Sam Ragsdale |Michael Q. Zhu |Miles Jennings
Justin Thaler is Research Partner at a16z and an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Georgetown University.
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May 2, 2024 | 
a16zcrypto.com | Justin Thaler |Sam Ragsdale |Michael Q. Zhu |Robert Hackett
Verifiable computing is a method for trustlessly outsourcing computation — and it’s a fast-developing area of technology that could help scale blockchains and, more broadly, decentralize the internet. We explore this world through the lens of zkVMs — or zero-knowledge virtual machines — tools that enable computers to prove that they ran programs correctly, as well as the SNARKs that enable them to work their magic.
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Apr 9, 2024 | 
a16zcrypto.com | Justin Thaler
Today, a16z crypto research and engineering teams released an initial implementation of Jolt, a new approach to SNARK design that is already up to 2x faster than the state of the art, with more improvements still to come. See this post for a high-level overview to this body of work, as well as this post for benchmarks and code, and this post for technical specifics about Jolt’s architecture and performance.
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Apr 9, 2024 | 
a16zcrypto.com | Justin Thaler
Today, a16z crypto research and engineering teams released an initial implementation of Jolt, a new approach to SNARK design that is already up to 2x faster than the state of the art, with more improvements still to come.
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Nov 20, 2023 | 
a16zcrypto.com | Justin Thaler
Today, Ben Diamond and Jim Posen of Ulvetanna (D&P) have released a paper improving the Ligero/Brakedown polynomial commitment scheme and integrating it with sum-check-based SNARKs such as Lasso. You can read my introduction to their work and its implications, and check out Ben and Jim’s github repo (called Binius) and blog post. This FAQ responds to the questions I’ve been asked when discussing Lasso, Jolt, and Binius. Here is a crude and speculative estimate.
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Aug 10, 2023 | 
a16zcrypto.com | Justin Thaler
Approaching the 'lookup singularity': Introducing Lasso and Jolt Justin Thaler Lasso + Joltopen sourceresearchscaling & throughputSNARKstech trendszero knowledge Editor’s Note: In this series, we’re sharing two new innovations that can significantly speed up scaling and building applications in web3: Lasso and Jolt.
