Vitalik Buterin reveals new cryptographic protocol Circle STARKs

• Vitalik Buterin revealed a new blockchain protocol for enhancing efficiency, Circle STARKs.
• Circle STARKs will utilize smaller fields to improve speed and maintain security.
• Polygon Labs and StarkWare are major collaborators in building Circle STARKs for ZK rollups.

Vitalik Buterin unveiled Ethereum's latest protocol, Circle STARKs, on Tuesday. The protocol aims to boost blockchain efficiency for Layer 2 networks through small-field cryptography.

Polygon and StarkWare partner with Ethereum to launch Circle STARKs

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin revealed the recent launch of Circle STARKs, a new cryptographic protocol developed by the joint effort of Polygon Labs and StarkWare. The protocol aims to improve the scalability and security of blockchain networks.

Scalable Transparent Arguments of Knowledge (STARKs) are a type of cryptographic proof that enhances the efficiency and security of a blockchain while maintaining its transparency.

Over the last two years, the STARK protocol design has switched from larger fields to working over small fields to enable faster transactions. This made the protocols "naturally compatible with verifying elliptic curve-based signatures and made them easy to reason about," said Buterin.

Buterin assures that Circle STARKs will improve blockchain security by adopting smaller fields for faster computation and transaction speed.

According to the post, traditional STARKs operate over 256-bit fields, which lowers the efficiency rate. Circle STARKs will leverage Mersenne31 to reduce "extra complexities on developers compared to regular STARKs."

Circle STARKs will utilize native arithmetic functions, enabling it to verify 620,000 Poseidon2 hashes per second.

Additionally, Buterin revealed that this new cryptographic protocol has already been implemented in Polygon's Plonky3 and StarkWare Stwo.

The announcement of a Circle STARK is already winning the support of several crypto community members. The protocol also accompanies Circle FRI, which will maintain cryptographic integrity.