Codaprotocol review

[gpestana]

Codaprotocol uses recursive composition of zk-SNARKs to securely represent a state of a linked-list. A linked-list is represented by a set of states and links between those states. The recursive composition of zk-SNARKs is used to generate a cryptographic signature of a the linked-list with fixed size for arbitrary number of list nodes.

blockchain

Codaprotocol can be used to create and maintain "succinct blockchains". Succinct blockchains are blockchains that for verifying the current state requires a constant amount of space and time (about 20kb and 10ms to verify balance). In the context of a blockchain, the codaprotocol allow for light clients to verify transactions without having to rely on third parties.

questions

Q.INF: what pieces of information are needed for verifying that a certain transaction is part of the blockchain?

Q.EFF: how efficiently is it to recursively traverse the blockchain? (use case: get all transactions from a particular user)

Q.MIN: although the transaction verification is short in time and space, do the miners still need to maintain the whole set of transactions?

Q.POW: is the proof of work for adding new transactions the same as in bitcoin and ehtereum?

Q.SCAL: if answers to Q.EFF and Q.POW, how is codaprotocol helping to mitigate the scalability problems of blockchains, apart from reducing time and space for transaction verification (helpful for light clients only, not for transaction throughput)?

Q.TM: what is the threat model?

literature

white paper