Whitepaper Reading Sessions at SBC '25 - Full Recap

EveOver eight hours, a global audience joined us for six deep-dive sessions into emerging blockchain research. Each paper tackled a different frontier -ranging from trusted execution environments to universal proving marketplaces - sparking rigorous discussion on technical, economic, and security trade-offs.

1. TEE-Based Asset Sharing – Liquefaction

James Austgen (@initc3org) & @0xfishylosopher (@Pantera)

Core idea: Use TEEs to enable secure, policy-controlled asset sharing without revealing private keys.

Key points:

• Breaks the single-owner model, enabling rentals, shared custody, and programmable asset control.
• Applicable to NFT rentals, complex vesting schedules, and DAO voting mechanisms.
• Moves authorization beyond cryptographic keys, introducing new layers of programmable control.
• Raised debate over security guarantees and ethical risks of TEE-based control.

Paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2412.02634v1

Summary: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GiSpOoYrv_E2svF9ZKAcR9OW9WepNXfl4QMy3YBEMos

Special thanks to @AriJuels and @initc3org for publishing this research and hosting the discussion.

2. Next-Gen ZK Privacy – Ligero

Prof. Muthu Venkitasubramaniam @mvenkita, @ligero_inc)

Core idea: A new privacy framework using MPC-in-the-Head and holographic proofs to go beyond traditional SNARK-based approaches.

Key points:

• Enables client-side proving with large primes.
• “Secret branching” allows complex private logic.
• Makes ZKML practical at 100M+ gate scale, enabling liveness checks and other high-complexity private computation.
• Explores private shared state for multi-party applications.
• Regulatory context: balancing privacy with KYC requirements.

Link: https://ligero-inc.com

Summary: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_sjX5MwbzwYVTzvBLEI7IE-YZPZ_efr8IfTDUM9TLp0

Thanks to @Phil_Kelly_NYC for driving the conversation with incisive questions, and @marco_derossi (@MetaMask) for valuable feedback.

3. High-Speed Consensus – Alpenglo

Roger Wattenhofer (@TheWattenhofer, @anza_xyz, @ETH_en)

Core idea: Achieving 150ms consensus finality for Solana while maintaining fairness and decentralization.

Key points:

• Demonstrated speed potential; user experience still depends on network latency.
• Examined execution layer constraints as potential bottlenecks.
• Multi-proposer systems proposed to preserve geographic diversity.
• Node distribution between Ethereum and Solana is more similar than commonly assumed.

Paper: https://anza.xyz/alpenglow-1-1

Summary: https://docs.google.com/document/d/15pdRrTXEdSNkS_rrnGpdVUPWopf37Z62VM4afmY881U

Thanks to @EmiT87 (@RockawayX_Infra) and @matt_bitcoin (@RunningCKB, @NervosNetwork) for their real-world node operator insights.

4. Chainless Architectures

Brian Seong (@BrianSeong99, @0xPolygon) & Paul Gebheim (@paulgebheim, @SeiNetwork)

Core idea: Verifiable applications that operate without traditional chain consensus.

Key points:

• Shifts the trust model to proving outputs and logs rather than full state consensus.
• Potential first step: provable databases (e.g., PostgreSQL).
• Could enable new application types otherwise impractical today.
• Regulatory drivers may accelerate adoption.

Paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2505.22989

Summary: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GB78RqqKn5-iaBRWBrGaKn8Rf5m7UBrExRS3fYvz3QY

5. zkRollup Attack Vectors – Prover Killer

Conner Swann (https://x.com/YourBuddyConner, https://x.com/TheProofLab)

Core idea: Exploiting the economic imbalance between low gas costs and high proving costs for certain EVM operations in zkRollups.

Key points:

• Affects rollups using standard EVM opcodes.
• Not easily mitigated through simple fixes such as rate-limiting.
• Has implications for rollup security models, proving incentives, and cost structures.
• Full details withheld pending responsible disclosure.

Summary: https://docs.google.com/document/d/14qJvMhwug76r_IPSUbSZ1kjaOiX-Y4GAlzdK9X5onM8

Thanks to https://x.com/prabalbanerjee (https://x.com/AvailProject) for adding context on L2 implications.

6. Universal Proving Marketplaces – Boundless

Rami Khalil (@hashcashier, @boundless_xyz, @RiscZero)

Core idea: A cross-chain ZK proof verification marketplace, enabling proofs generated anywhere to be verified on any EVM chain.

Key points:

• Already verifying full Ethereum state.
• Reverse Dutch auction pricing for efficiency.
• Supports splitting large proof jobs into parallel tasks.
• Detailed discussion on ZKVM pricing and complexity of cycle-based cost measurement.

Paper: https://read.beboundless.xyz

Summary: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SiDEiFjbyqE75xjygtOMR0ev33-eejnhPXiLlUwX_mI

Thanks to @NorbertVadas of @thezkcloud for excellent questions and @prabalbanerjee for insights into competitive dynamics.

Closing

A huge thank you to our co-organizers @whitepaperreadingclub, @initc3org, and @CalBlockchain for making this possible. This was our second collaboration after Devcon last year, and we look forward to building on this momentum together in many more events to come.

Full recordings coming soon to @HouseofZK.