Proving as Fast as Computing - Part 1

Succinct arguments allow a prover to convince a verifier that a given statement is true, using an extremely short proof. A major bottleneck – and hence a major area of research – has been the overhead incurred by the prover to prove correctness of the computation. In this talk, Ron Rothblum (Technion) focuses on the setting of Boolean circuits and describes methods that allow one to prove correctness with nearly optimal asymptotic overhead.

Based on joint works with Noga Ron-Zewi and Justin Holmgren.

About the speaker

Ron is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Computer Science at the Technion. He completed his PhD at the Weizmann Institute in 2015, advised by Prof. Oded Goldreich. Following a postdoc at MIT, he joined the Technion in 2018. Ron’s research lies within the intersection of cryptography and computational complexity, focusing mostly on the development of new and efficient proof-systems. His P.hD. thesis was awarded the John F. Kennedy Prize from the Weizmann Institute of Science as well as the Shimon Even Prize. In 2022 he received the Kril prize from the Wolf foundation.

About a16z crypto

research a16z crypto research is a multidisciplinary lab that works closely with our portfolio companies and others toward solving the important problems in the space, and toward advancing the science and technology of the next generation of the internet.