Starknet's S-two Prover Accelerates Shielded Compute Capabilities

Starknet, a leading Ethereum Layer 2 scaling solution, is significantly enhancing its capabilities for "shielded compute," promising faster and more private transactions. This development follows the recent deployment of its S-two prover on the mainnet, a next-generation zero-knowledge technology optimized for speed, privacy, and decentralization. The announcement was highlighted by "Brother Odin 🥷🏽" who stated in a tweet, "> Starknet makes shielded compute fast."

Shielded compute refers to the ability to execute computations or transactions on a blockchain while keeping the details private, often using zero-knowledge proofs. Starknet's S-two prover is designed to generate these cryptographic proofs with unprecedented speed, making previously impractical privacy-preserving applications economically feasible. This includes private DeFi transactions, verifiable identity systems, and zero-knowledge machine learning (ZKML).

The S-two prover, a fully open-source solution from StarkWare, replaces the previous Stone prover and is reportedly the fastest in the world. Benchmarks indicate it can generate proofs up to an order of magnitude faster than its predecessor, completing computations in seconds that previously took minutes. This leap in performance is crucial for the efficient operation of shielded compute, as it reduces the time and cost associated with generating validity proofs for private transactions.

The enhanced speed of shielded compute on Starknet is expected to foster new classes of applications requiring frequent or complex proof generation. These advancements also pave the way for decentralized proving, where more sequencers can participate in validating Starknet's state, further strengthening network security and resilience. The integration of S-two is a key step towards a future where scalable, verifiable, privacy-centric, and decentralized applications are widely accessible.