Nova VS zexe

Lurk Lab @ Protocol Labs | Multiple Positions | REMOTE | Full-time

Lurk Lab is building Lurk (https://github.com/lurk-lang), a Turing-complete programming language for recursive zk-SNARKs. Lurk implements a minimal Lisp whose program executions can be proved in zero-knowledge, yielding succinct proofs that are concretely small and fast to verify. Lurk uses a Rust implementation (https://github.com/lurk-lang/lurk-rs) for expression evaluation, proving, and verification, with Nova (https://github.com/microsoft/Nova/) as its proving backend. Because Lurk is Turing-complete, it can be used to make and prove arbitrary computational claims (within resource limits).

We are looking for strong cryptography engineers, researchers, functional programming language specialists, applications developers, and start-up leaders/web3 entrepreneurs who want to build next-generation SNARK technology.

Ideal candidates will be knowledgeable about the state of the art in zero-knowledge proofs and (if looking for an engineering position) strong in Rust.

We are specifically hiring for:

- Rust Cryptography Engineers

Lurk Lab is building Lurk (https://github.com/lurk-lang), a Turing-complete programming language for recursive zk-SNARKs. Lurk implements a minimal Lisp whose program executions can be proved in zero-knowledge, yielding succinct proofs that are concretely small and fast to verify. Lurk uses a Rust implementation (https://github.com/lurk-lang/lurk-rs) for expression evaluation, proving, and verification, with Nova (https://github.com/microsoft/Nova/) as its proving backend. Because Lurk is Turing-complete, it can be used to make and prove arbitrary computational claims (within resource limits).

We are looking for strong cryptography engineers, researchers, documentation specialists, applications developers, and start-up leaders/web3 entrepreneurs who want to build next-generation SNARK technology. Relevant programming languages include Rust, Lisp, and (less significantly) WASM.

We are hiring for:

- Rust Cryptography Engineers, https://grnh.se/d94e94ec4us

- Software Engineers for Lurk Application Development, https://grnh.se/de7e82424us

- Documentation Engineer, https://grnh.se/10e2ca4d4us

- Start-up operator / business lead (currently unlisted, email [email protected] with CV and a brief cover letter describing your experience driving the business end of deep technical projects in the web3 space)

Lurk Lab @ Protocol Labs | Multiple Positions | REMOTE | Full-time contract-to-hire

Lurk Lab is building Lurk (https://github.com/lurk-lang), a Turing-complete programming language for recursive zk-SNARKs. Lurk implements a minimal Lisp whose program executions can be proved in zero-knowledge, yielding succinct proofs that are concretely small and fast to verify. Lurk uses a Rust implementation (https://github.com/lurk-lang/lurk-rs) for expression evaluation, proving, and verification, with Nova (https://github.com/microsoft/Nova/) as its proving backend. Because Lurk is Turing-complete, it can be used to make and prove arbitrary computational claims (within resource limits).

We are looking for strong cryptography engineers, researchers, documentation specialists, applications developers, and start-up leaders/web3 entrepreneurs who want to build next-generation SNARK technology. Relevant programming languages include Rust, Lisp, and (less significantly) WASM.

We are hiring for:

- Rust Cryptography Engineers, https://grnh.se/d94e94ec4us

There's been a lot of VDF progress. The new design is Sloth + SNARKs (specifically Nova with GPU-accelerated MSMs). We will have an end-to-end demo of a CPU-based VDF in a few weeks, and the first VDF ASICs test samples (12nm GlobalFoundries) will be produced in December 2022.

Arkworks isn't really addressing the core of what Lurk provides. In theory, we could use Arkworks to implement a backend — but we are targeting Nova (https://github.com/microsoft/Nova), and I don't think Arkworks supports Nova currently. So the part we are building from scratch (the language itself) is at a higher level of abstraction. We like Nova's characteristics and are actively helping with aspects of its implementation so we can use it as soon as possible.

Nova. Recursive SNARKs without trusted setup.

You want to pay only for genuine generation, but what if the service only generates the same picture of bugs bunny. Now what if it parses "man, woman, ..." and only picks from 100 pictures instead of computing. Well there are zero–knowledge proof techniques to ensure that someone actually went through the motions of computing: https://eprint.iacr.org/2018/962

I wonder how this compares to something like zexe (https://github.com/brucechin/zexe). This domain interests me although I have little practical knowledge/experience in it.