STARKs
Overview
Scalable Transparent Arguments of Knowledge. A proof system that compresses proofs into succinct form verifiable in polylog time. Ben-Sasson co-founded StarkWare (2018); STARKs enable "instant proof execution" by automating Boolean gate generation—thousands of pages of proof become a few bytes verifiable in an instant.
Era: 2018–
Proposed at: Israel (StarkWare)
Formal structure
Domain: Computation trace; polynomial commitment; FRI (Fast Reed–Solomon IOP)
Proof size O(polylog(n)); verify in O(polylog(n))
Constraints: Transparent (no trusted setup); post-quantum secure
Objective: Compress proofs; instant verification; ZKP for scalability