Proving as Fast as Computing - Part 1 with Ron Rothblum | a16z crypto research

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
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Our researchers are technologists, scientists, cryptographers, and cryptocurrency experts, working to bridge the worlds of academic theory with industry practice, and to help shape crypto and web3 as a formal area of study. More about us: a16z.com/2022/04/21/announcing-a16z-crypto-research

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