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StarkWare Unveils New 'Stwo' Cryptographic Prover That's 'Blazingly Fast'

The upgraded prover should lead to faster and cheaper transactions, according to StarkWare. The news comes just a week after StarkWare and Polygon announced Circle STARKS, a new type of cryptographic proof.

Updated Mar 8, 2024, 10:28 p.m. Published Feb 29, 2024, 11:35 p.m.
StarkWare CEO Eli Ben-Sasson, speaking at ETHDenver on Thursday. (Danny Nelson)
StarkWare CEO Eli Ben-Sasson, speaking at ETHDenver on Thursday. (Danny Nelson)

DENVER, COLORADO – StarkWare, the developer firm behind layer-2 network Starknet, announced on Thursday at ETHDenver that it is building a new cryptographic prover, called Stwo.

A prover is a key component for layer-2s, since they generate proofs that are then posted to the base layer blockchain – a crucial process in linking the networks and sharing the security. With a faster prover, processing transactions costs should be lower, which in effect then will also lower fees for users and speed up transactions, according to the StarkWare team.

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In August, StarkWare open-sourced its existing prover, known as Stone. The new prover, "Stwo," gets its name from a portmanteau of Stone and Two, and anyone will be able to run it as well as examine its codebase, according to a press release seen by CoinDesk.

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Starknet appchains that currently use Stone will eventually reap the benefits of the Stwo prover, according to StarkWare.

The news comes just a week after StarkWare and Polygon announced Circle STARKS, which are a new type of cryptographic proofs designed to make transactions faster and cheaper for zero-knowledge rollups.

Oren Katz, COO of StarkWare, said in a press release that Circle STARKS will be implemented in Stwo, helping to "supercharge Ethereum by more efficiently generating proofs."

“It’s especially exciting that just a week after the new Circle STARK protocol was announced as a theoretical breakthrough, this protocol is already springing to life with the development of this blazingly fast prover,” Katz said.

Read more: Polygon, StarkWare Tout New 'Circle STARKs' as Breakthrough for Zero-Knowledge Proofs

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