A Brief Analysis of Succinct SP1: The Fastest zkVM

The $5,500,000 financing of Succinct is a top-tier ZK project led by Paradigm in two rounds.

The core product of this top ZK project is SP1, which is currently the fastest zkVM.

• Leading performance, proving speeds up to 28 times higher than other zkVMs, with costs reduced to a fraction.

• Supports writing ZKP in Rust, reusing existing code libraries, improving development efficiency by 100 times.

• Supports production-grade use cases, audited by top firms, and adopted by major projects like Polygon and Celestia.

1. What is SP1?

SP1 is a general-purpose zero-knowledge virtual machine (zkVM) that allows developers to write ordinary code in Rust (or any language that supports LLVM compilation) to generate efficient zero-knowledge proofs for verifying the correct execution of programs.

In simple terms, SP1 allows developers to quickly build verifiable computing applications with cryptographic security using familiar programming languages, without the need to delve into complex cryptographic theories.

The core innovation of SP1 lies in significantly lowering the development threshold for zero-knowledge proofs while maintaining top-notch performance and flexibility. It makes ZKP as simple as writing ordinary software, allowing blockchain infrastructure (such as Rollup, cross-chain bridges, oracles, etc.) to achieve verifiability through maintainable code.

Zero-knowledge proof ( ZKP ) can prove the correctness of a computation without revealing any input data. This capability has infinite application scenarios in blockchain:

• Scalability: Through Rollup, ZKP can compress a large number of transactions into a single proof, significantly reducing the burden on the main chain.
• Interoperability: ZKP can verify the state of different chains, facilitating cross-chain communication.
• Privacy: ZKP ensures the privacy of transactions or states, protecting user data.
• Bridge and Oracle: ZKP allows off-chain data or computations to be verified on-chain without trust. However, the complexity of traditional ZKP development is nothing short of a "nightmare." It requires a specialized cryptography team, years of development cycles, and high maintenance costs.

The emergence of SP1 has completely changed this situation.

The features of SP1

1. The fastest and most powerful zkVM currently

Faster than other zkVMs by 4-28 times on actual blockchain workloads (such as light client validation, Rollup, etc.), it can even rival manually optimized dedicated circuits. Its latest version SP1 Turbo (v4.0.0) takes only 40 seconds to verify Ethereum mainnet blocks when running on GPU clusters, with costs as low as a few cents.

2. Support writing ZKP in Rust

SP1 allows developers to write ZKP logic using Rust and directly reuse existing Rust ecosystem libraries (such as revm, reth, alloy, etc.).

Developers can directly modify the existing blockchain node code to generate ZKP, saving the trouble of writing complex circuits from scratch.

3. Precompilation: The Secret Weapon for Performance

SP1 introduces a "precompiled" mechanism that is highly optimized for common cryptographic operations (such as keccak, sha256, signature verification, etc.). These precompilations significantly reduce computational overhead, giving SP1 a considerable boost when handling complex blockchain workloads. For example, SP1 runs the ZK Tendermint light client, directly reducing the verification time from 2.2 hours to 4.6 minutes.

4.100% Open Source, Code Security

SP1 is 100% open source (MIT/Apache 2.0 license). Its modular architecture allows developers to customize "precompiles" to optimize performance for specific use cases. Unlike traditional closed-source zkVMs, SP1 embraces community contributions and has attracted developers from teams such as Polygon, Celestia, and Sovereign Labs to collaborate on its improvement.

SP1 has undergone multiple audits by several top ZK security companies and achieved an excellent result of "zero high-risk vulnerabilities" in public audit competitions.

5. Quality Partners

Polygon, Celestia, Avail, Taiko, and others have adopted Succinct's SP1 to build ZKPs, securing over $1 billion in on-chain assets (TVL). From Rollups to cross-chain bridges, from oracles to privacy protocols, SP1 is becoming a standard configuration for blockchain infrastructure.

Application scenarios of SP1

SP1 has implemented many use cases in the blockchain:

• Rollup: Build ZK Rollup using SP1 to generate zero-knowledge proofs for state transitions, connecting to main chains such as Ethereum or Bitcoin, achieving high throughput and low cost. For example, OP Succinct uses SP1 to provide a production-grade proof engine for OP Stack.
• Cross-chain bridge: SP1 can verify Layer 1 consensus (such as Tendermint or Ethereum light clients) to build a secure and efficient cross-chain bridge. For example, SP1 Blobstream verifies the data root of Celestia on Ethereum, while SP1 Vector relays the Merkle root of Avail to Ethereum.
• Interoperability: Through SP1, Rollups can achieve fast determinism and interoperability, assisting projects like Polygon's AggLayer.
• Oracle: SP1 supports large-scale off-chain computations (such as historical state queries, on-chain machine learning) and generates verifiable proofs on-chain, significantly reducing Gas costs.
• Privacy: SP1 enables private transactions and states, protecting user data security.
• Aggregation: SP1 can aggregate similar ZKPs, further reducing on-chain verification costs, and projects like Nebra are exploring this direction.