Microsoft’s Magnetar Research Could Matter to Blockchain Proof Costs

TL;DR: Microsoft Research says its Magnetar system makes proofs of ordinary program execution faster while relying on standard hash-based cryptography.
Zero-knowledge systems promise that a computation can be checked without trusting the machine that performed it. One reason they remain difficult to deploy is the cost of generating those proofs. Microsoft Research’s October 15 Magnetar announcement tackles that bottleneck using a virtual machine designed to prove ordinary programmes.
The resea