StarkWare is a company focused on zero-knowledge (ZK) technology, dedicated to achieving information verification without disclosing specific content. StarkWare has stated that it has developed a ZK verification tool for the Bitcoin (BTC) blockchain that can run on mobile devices.
The proof contains all Bitcoin block headers since the genesis block but does not include the complete Bitcoin blockchain history. Currently, the data volume of the Bitcoin blockchain history has exceeded 680GB.
Each block header contains the Bitcoin software version number, a reference to the previous block, a timestamp, the block size, and the random number (nonce) that miners need to find to write the block to the ledger.
According to Abdelhamid Bakhta, head of the StarkWare ecosystem, the BTC ledger proof from StarkWare is only 1MB, and users can verify transactions in less than 100 milliseconds.
This lightweight client is based on the Simplified Payment Verification (SPV) concept proposed in Satoshi Nakamoto's white paper, allowing lightweight nodes to verify payments without downloading the complete ledger.
StarkWare's announcement is significant as it enables all users to verify Bitcoin payments without the need to set up a full Bitcoin node. The cost of setting up a full node ranges from $300 to $1,000, which presents a high technical barrier for ordinary users.
The operational threshold for Bitcoin nodes is lower compared to other blockchain networks, which may require investments of tens of thousands of dollars.
Due to the relatively simple structure of the Bitcoin protocol, only 680GB of data has been generated since 2009, allowing Bitcoin nodes to run on ordinary personal computers.
The simplicity of the protocol structure and the low hardware threshold are key to ensuring decentralization and maintaining the Bitcoin consensus mechanism, which is upheld by independent node operators.
If nodes become expensive due to increased hardware requirements, the network will tend to centralize around large service providers with hardware resources, which goes against the core values of Bitcoin.
Critics point out that storing inscriptions, ordinals, and other non-monetary data on-chain will increase the size of the blockchain, requiring node operators to store large amounts of non-monetary data, thereby exacerbating centralization risks.
According to the Bitcoin Core development team, in May of this year, about 80% of BTC node operators using Bitcoin Core version 30 plan to release in October, which will remove the OP_RETURN limit that specifies the maximum amount of non-monetary data that can be embedded in Bitcoin transactions.
Currently, the OP_RETURN limit is 80 bytes, which is far from sufficient to store most images and multimedia content. This proposal has significantly increased the number of Bitcoin Knots node users.
Bitcoin Knots is an optional Bitcoin node software that supports more customizable parameters, including allowing node operators to limit the amount of OP_RETURN data stored in the memory pool and decide whether to forward it to other nodes.
By 2025, the proportion of Knots nodes is expected to approach 20%, while at the end of 2024, this proportion was about 1%.
Related: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has delayed decisions on BlackRock and Franklin Templeton's cryptocurrency ETFs.
Original article: “StarkWare Announces Launch of Lightweight Bitcoin (BTC) Verification for Mobile Devices”
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