Vitalik Buterin
@vitalik.eth
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A fun math aside, on the idea of splitting a large zk proving workload between multiple provers.
Suppose you have N provers, and you have a proving workload that you split into N parts (so, one part per prover). You require provers to pre-register, but registration is open-access.
Suppose you have a constant fault rate (eg. 1/5 of registered provers fail). Provers expect to complete in one round (eg. 3s). If one prover fails, other provers have to come in and re-prove that load. How many rounds does it take for the entire workload to get proven?
Answer: log*(N)
(yes, that's the iterated-log function)
Why:
In the first round, you go from N unproven workloads to N/5 unproven workloads
In the second round, each remaining workload gets assigned 5 provers, so per-workload failure rate becomes 1 in 5^5. So you go to N / 5 / 5^5 unproven workloads
In the third round, each remaining workload gets assigned ~5^5 provers, so failure rate is 1 in 5^(5^5). So you go to N / 5 / 5^5 / 5^(5^5) unproven workloads 16 replies
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And my personal focuses for 2025:
1. Ethereum, particularly:
(i) L1 long-term roadmap (eg. single-slot finality, long-term VM, statelessness, security / resilience / decentralization)
(ii) full-stack security, open source and privacy: ensuring Ethereum is usable in a way that is highly secure, free of centralized intermediaries and privacy-friendly, incl higher up the stack (apps, wallets...)
2. Big-picture d/acc (see https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2025/01/05/dacc2.html ):
* comms tools, info and social layer, mechanism design eg. governance, pubgoods/open source funding
* cryptography, OS, hardware, physical infra, bio defense
Meanwhile areas that are important but where I am relatively less involved (and others excel):
* @gakonst @ansgar.eth @dankrad and others are taking on practicals of short-term scaling (eg. 10x the L1 gaslimit within 2026)
* p2p, block construction, other research areas
* @hww @tkstanczak are leading many EF matters
* proven app layer categories (eg. defi, payments/savings) 26 replies
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