lean Ethereum Part 4: leanVM, a Custom VM for Signature Aggregation

About this episode

This episode discusses the design and implementation of LeanVM, a minimal zkVM for signature aggregation on Ethereum.

https://youtu.be/YWkyvTrwtQU   In this episode of the lean Ethereum miniseries, Nico Mohnblatt speaks with Thomas Coratger and Emile from the Ethereum Foundation about the design and implementation of LeanVM, a minimal zkVM created to support post-quantum signature aggregation on Ethereum’s consensus layer. They explain why the team chose a VM architecture over fixed circuits and how LeanVM takes inspiration from Cairo with just 4 opcodes and 2 precompiles to keep the instruction set extremely small and make formal verification easier. The conversation also covers LeanVM implementation choices like using Plonky3 and WHIR for efficient proving on CPUs, benchmarks for aggregation speed, and the role of Python specs in testing client interop. They share ongoing efforts to optimize low-level primitives and invite community input on the project.   Related Links lean Ethereum Part 1: Introduction with Justin Drake lean Ethereum Part 2: PQ Signatures and Poseidon with Dmitry and Benedikt lean Ethereum Part 3: Security of PQ SNARKs and an update about the Proximity Prize lean Ethereum Lean Consensus R&D Progress Cairo zkVM WHIR: Reed–Solomon Proximity Testing with…

People in this episode

Host: Nico Mohnblatt

Guests: Thomas Coratger, Emile

Topics covered

• Ethereum
• zkVM
• signature aggregation
• post-quantum cryptography
• formal verification
• client interop
• optimization

Keywords

• LeanVM
• zkVM
• Ethereum
• signature aggregation
• post-quantum
• formal verification
• Plonky3
• WHIR
• Cairo
• client interop

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Ethereum Foundation, Cairo, leanEthereum, WHIR, Plonky3, leanSig, leanSpec

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