Herodotus, a technology company, is introducing a groundbreaking zero-knowledge proof (ZK-proof) technology designed to enhance access and verification of historical data from the Ethereum blockchain. This innovation aims to address one of Ethereum’s usability challenges, namely, deep chain validation.
Herodotus has launched an on-chain accumulator utilizing storage proof cryptography, enabling users to independently verify data from any point in Ethereum’s blockchain without relying on third-party services. This solution leverages StarkWare’s STARK proving technology, co-invented by mathematician Eli Ben-Sasson.
StarkWare collaborated with Herodotus, providing a custom-built instance of its shared prover service known as SHARP. This service enhances scalability efficiency through recursive proofs, allowing virtual machines to generate “proofs of proofs.” These proofs, produced in parallel and real-time, are batched into subsequent proofs. At a more technical level, the accumulator functions as a cache for storing block headers. When the accumulator has a cached header, the associated storage proof computation can use it for validation. In cases where the header is not cached, the prover generates a proof to cover the requested block range, adds the block header to the accumulator, and then completes the requested storage proof computation.
The on-chain accumulator, as the name suggests, accumulates proofs that consolidate previous proofs, significantly reducing the time required to verify Ethereum’s blockchain and associated data at any historical point within the network. Marcello Bardus, Chief Technology Officer at Herodotus, emphasizes that this technology eliminates the need to traverse the entire blockchain on the blockchain itself. He states:
“We can do it off chain, generate an accumulator and just cherry-pick one specific block without iterating from the entire chain on the chain itself.”
Storage Proofs, according to StarkWare, have the potential to revolutionize data verification as an alternative to cross-chain bridges that rely on third-party oracles to track and validate data. Kacper Koziol, Co-Founder of Herodotus, highlights the innovation’s significance, aligning Ethereum with blockchain principles of transparency and accessibility. This technology empowers users to access any point in Ethereum’s history, a capability with numerous potential applications.
One notable use case is account recovery, where the ability to verify on-chain data could trigger actions such as a “dead man’s switch” or automate insurance protocols that rely on historical on-chain events to trigger smart contract payouts. This pioneering technology opens the door to “Web2 equivalent applications” that can independently access and verify Ethereum blockchain data, ushering in a new era of transparency and autonomy.
