Gevulot is an internet scale compute network exclusively optimized for zero-knowledge proof generation, offering high liveness guarantees and predictable fees. Gevulot's performance is designed to match centralized provers, making it a competitive. We believe that Gevulot's approach is unique by providing decentralized proving and will become a key part of the web3 infrastructure.

Rise of the Zero-Knowledge

Zero-Knowledge (ZK) technology will be crucial technology for scaling blockchains and ensuring privacy. Zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) is a cryptographic method that allows one party to prove the validity of a statement to another party without revealing any additional information beyond the fact that the statement is true. This represents a shift from relying on economic guarantee of consensus to cryptographic ones without a need for re-execution and enabling the development of applications that require zero trust. This technology can simplify the blockchain space by preserving privacy without requiring the revelation of sensitive information. ZK technology has immediate applications in the blockchain but will eventually will transcend the crypto space (i.e., proving that the content is not generated by AI). At RockawayX, we've long been committed to bringing ZK to the world, and are internally building capabilities across the full ZK stack, from datacenters for ZK machines to proof acceleration, in order to support our portfolio companies.

There are few observations that make us believe that we are at the start of the era when ZK will be wide spread.

• ZK is getting more practical. Traditionally the computation time required with the proofs generation have been significant, which made them impractical. ZPrize has introduced a several categories in the past edition and team submissions were able to improve on baseline in the 2–11x and the progress has not stoped.

^{Source: Z-Prize https://www.zprize.io/blog/zprize-retrospective}

Further advances in proving schemes are contributing to decreasing proving and verification times. Also the improvements on the computation and hardware level are making ZK technology practical.

^{Source: The 2023 State of Crypto Report by a16z2.}

• The ZK technology is getting attention of developers. This follows a growing trend in the research papers dedicated to ZK. At the same time some of the technologies have matured and were given to the hands of the developers through Cairo, Noir, Risc0 and others. All of which have been supported by the new educational content for the developers.

There has been several projects iterating and experimenting with the ZK technology. Be it ZK ML applications deploying trading bots, Risc0 team deploying Zeth a Type0 EVM, and other gaming and identity focused teams.

^{Source: The 2023 State of Crypto Report by a16z3}.

• ZK is already a significant part of the crypto ecosystem. Several ZK L2's went live and were able to attract liquidity from the market. During the 2023 the TVL has increased significantly, briefly surpassing the $800m.

^{Source: Dune analytics}

With the inflow of liquidity the ZK L2 ecosystems have grown and became more mature. Below an example on the zkSync ecosystem maps demonstrates the point.

^{Source: https://twitter.com/zksync_ing/status/1666108896287813632/photo/1ZK proving market}

ZK proving market

ZK Proving is set to diversify in numerous ways. Centralized proving and client-side proving are already established. Furthermore, federated proving models are developing. In the context of web3, a decentralized proving model is essential. This model prioritizes permissionless deployment, encourages verifier participation, and optimizes for liveness. Importantly, each model has its specific advantages and disadvantages, but they are designed to coexist. Gevulot is leading the charge and pioneering the progress in decentralized proving.

Introducing Gevulot

Gevulot is a permissionless layer one blockchain that specializes in the deployment of zero-knowledge provers and verifiers as on-chain programs. It is designed to support applications that require efficient and cost-effective proof generation, offering high liveness guarantees and predictable fees. L1 operated by Gevulot is a light Proof of Stake (PoS) model with minimal features, such as accounting, proving and deployment of proof systems.

The network's key stakeholders include zero-knowledge hardware (ZK HW) operators, validators, and applications that utilize the proofs. ZK HW operators provide the necessary computational infrastructure for proof generation. Validators play a crucial role in maintaining the integrity of the blockchain, and applications are the end-users that leverage the proofs for various functionalities. This system democratizes the proving process, allowing anyone to deploy provers and verifiers with ease.

We can envision several use cases for the Gevulot network. Firstly, as a Prover-as-a-service, modern validity rollups and other services which need to compute proofs can use Gevulot to outsource their proving, relieving them from having to bootstrap their own prover networks or manage heavy computational loads. Secondly, Gevulot can host multiple zkVM implementations like CairoVM, Risc0, Wasm0 and zkEVMs, serving as a standalone environment for their deployment. Lastly, Gevulot can be utilized for the aggregation of proofs, especially in many rollup systems that require the aggregation of numerous smaller proofs into one aggregate proof.

Gevulot is much-needed for several reasons. Firstly, it enables permissionless deployment of the prover and verifiers, which is currently unparalleled. Secondly, the use of decentralized infrastructure to operate the provers is vital for establishing a robust, anti-fragile, and credibly neutral Web3. Lastly, Gevulot's architecture is optimized for speed and cost-efficiency due to its exclusive focus on ZK proofs and a minimal feature set beyond this, which should reduce the premium compared to centralised proving.

Looking Forward

As co-founders of Gevulot, Teemu Päivinen and Tuomas Mäkinen bring valuable experience in building rollups and other ZK systems. With the funds secured from the investment round, Gevulot is prepared to expand its reach, strengthen its presence in the market, and contribute to the broader adoption of decentralized technologies.

Gevulot raises a $6m seed round led by Variant with participation of RockawayX, and Volt and ecosystem angels. RockawayX Infra is one of the first operators giving feedback on devnet deployment since January. The company is well-funded to support its devnet launch in March 2024 and we are excited to be by their side.