The =nil; Foundation Says Its New Software Is Rocket Fuel for Zero-Knowledge Developers

Embargoed for Thursday 2nd February, 2:00 PM GMT/ 9:00 AM ET/ 2:00 PM UTC

The =nil; Foundation, the playfully-named blockchain infrastructure startup, introduced a toolkit Thursday that it says will radically decrease the time it will take for developers to build platforms that use zero-knowledge cryptography.

The new project from =nil; called zkLLVM, will act as a compiler for developers building zero-knowledge circuits – fancy algorithms that enable someone to guarantee something is true without walking through the steps to prove it.

ZK technology has been around since the 1980s, but its applicability to crypto – which ranges from transaction privacy to blockchain scaling – has fueled a kind of ZK renaissance in recent years. Breakthroughs in ZK research have driven hundreds of millions in funding to startups like Matter Labs, StarkWare, and Mina that develop ZK-based blockchain infrastructure, and CoinDesk reported last week that =nil; had raised $22 million to build its own suite of zero-knowledge products.

Komarav says =nil; created zkLLVM to dramatically slice workloads for ZK developers by making it possible for them to easily turn code written in familiar programming languages – like C++ and Rust – into fully-working zero-knowledge circuits.

Writing a zero-knowledge circuit tends to be a complicated, timely endeavor for developers. It generally involves familiarizing oneself with niche programming languages and finicky, domain-specific software libraries.

LLVM, which stands for “low-level virtual machine,” refers to a set of open-source code libraries that developers use to “compile” their human-readable code into a format that can be interpreted by a computer. Building off the LLVM project, “we built a compiler from mainstream languages that are already known to everybody” =nil; founder Mikhail Komarav told CoinDesk.

The zkLLVM project will also automatically plug into =nil;’s recently-announced ZK proof market, which it created to help ZK teams decentralize their operations, and outsource certain kinds of computation to third parties.

Read more: The =nil; Foundation Raises $22M to Build Marketplace for Zero-Knowledge Proofs

The =nil; Foundation released the project Thursday on Github under an open-source license, meaning any developer can freely use or modify the zkLLVM code.

The =nil; Foundation says its technology will be particularly useful for the myriad companies racing to build so-called zkEVMs, a kind of Ethereum scaling solution that uses ZK technology to slice the blockchain’s fees and wait times.

Using the zkEVM platform Scroll as an example, Komarav explained that “they built their circuits manually” using a special software library developed for the Rust programming language. “They spent like a year and a half for that and a lot of money as well,” said Komarav. “If they had access to what we made a little bit earlier, maybe they could have spent only a couple of months to just build and debug stuff.”

Read more: The Sudden Rise of EVM-Compatible ZK Rollups

ZK circuits are increasingly used to secure the flow of valuable digital assets, meaning programming errors can prove extremely expensive. Komarav acknowledged to CoinDesk that zkLLVM will need to prove itself before it earns the trust of developers. When an earlier version of the zkLLVM codebase leaked online, some developers said they would be wary of trusting =nil;’s circuit-generation capabilities, given the code’s complexity.

Komarav also noted that zkLLVM currently has limitations when it comes to handling particularly large circuits – programs that are more complicated to translate into zero-knowledge form. He hopes, however, that the zkLLVM codebase will mature to a point where developers can finally stop thinking about the nitty-gritty of ZK-circuit building and focus on other parts of their software.