Introduction to ZKM

ZKM Vision & Mission

ZKM is fully open source and available for anyone to build upon leveraging the MIPS instruction set. The project is heavily research based, pioneering a different way to address verifiable computing to enable a more connected blockchain experience.

We firmly believe in the necessity for a decentralized and trustworthy internet. To accomplish this in an efficient way that is optimized for users, the presently fragmented blockchain space requires complete unification and seamless interoperability.

To solve this issue, ZKM aims to significantly enhance and cohere the decentralized internet in an unparalleled way, eventually making possible the integration of non-blockchain systems into blockchain.

How will ZKM do this?

We are building a general purpose zkVM that will integrate with the infrastructure of every blockchain (and eventually systems beyond blockchain), allowing the communication of state changes between chains without any sacrifice to security or decentralization.

Our zkVM opens up many other potential use-cases, but this particular use-case is perhaps the most urgent, as lack of security and ease in interoperability is a significant prohibitor to blockchain technology gaining mass-adoption.

What is a zkVM?

A zero-knowledge Virtual Machine (zkVM) is a program that can run other programs, implemented as a circuit for a zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) system. They’re designed primarily for use in blockchain and related technologies to facilitate verifiable computation and secure communication channels, ensuring the integrity and consistency of data across different platforms.

This is done through the generation and exchange of ZKP’s (succinct representations of data-sets) between platforms, which prove the validity of the entire data-set from one platform to another in a way that is easy for the recipient platform to verify.

Don’t interoperability protocols already exist?

The current profusion of protocols attempting to solve the blockchain interoperability problem has not only made for a highly chaotic and perplexing environment for users to try to navigate, but they each have certain implicit flaws and trade-offs that can be bypassed only with a solution that integrates seamlessly with the architecture of the chains themselves.

There is a clear need for a single interoperability solution that is network agnostic. Integration of our zkVM is an optimal solution for creating an interoperable blockchain environment in a completely secure and decentralized way.