The improvement of the zkVM framework will be a huge factor in addressing blockchain privacy issues. What is zkVM, and how are projects like @Scroll and @Axiom improving the zkVM user experience? A thread

Zero Knowledge proofs, or #zk proofs, are a cryptography solution that let a prover mathematically verify a transaction to be valid without revealing any of the data it contains. This creates a layer of privacy around blockchain transactions while still having an open system that can verify that a transaction occurred and its state.

Virtual Machines (VMs) are responsible for tracking the state of a chain. This includes wallet balances, the states of smart contracts, and anything else that lives onchain. The Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) is the most popular VM and is widely integrated into other chains, making them compatible with Ethereum by using the same coding frameworks for smart contracts. Any time a transaction occurs onchain, the VM is responsible for updating the chain's state and ensuring its accuracy.

A zkVM combines these concepts and creates a state machine that is not only scalable and cost-effective, but also much more privacy enabling than other VMs. How? Through the power of BLOBS.

Blob stands for Binary Large Object, and they are responsible for storing transaction metadata in ZK rollups. These blobs mainly exist offchain, and work by taking transaction data and creating a cryptographic ZK proof that represents the verified transaction. Instead of leaving all of the transaction data sitting on the chain and taking up space, these blobs store the data and send the ZK proof to the chain to be verified. After a certain amount of time has passed, these blobs can be deleted to free up even more space on the chain. Blobs create a system that makes transactions private while still maintaining the open source nature of blockchain. A prover can use these ZK proofs to verify that the transaction did take place as well as its state.

By using these blobs, a zkVM is able to scale much more efficiently because most transaction data is not stored directly on the chain. ZK rollups also generally settle much faster than optimistic rollups, which are another scaling solution utilized by many Ethereum L2s.

The main issue with ZK is that this system is still very complex and requires a lot of computing power. @Scroll and @Axiom are improving on the efficiency of zkVMs through their OpenVM framework, which adds tons of new features to zkVMs. This will make them far more accessible and easier to use, which will encourage the development of privacy protecting dApps.

ZK is the future of secure computing, and I believe this field will boom over the next few years as blockchain businesses move to enhance transaction privacy. To learn more about how EVMs and ZK proofs function, check out the Blockchain Infrastructure section of my free course here: https://dcft.site/5-blockchain-ecosystem-infrastructure…