'500 Transactions a Second': Vitalik Says Zk-Snarks Could Scale Ethereum

A form of cryptography pioneered by zcash might help scale ethereum, the founder of the platform Vitalik Buterin said on a research forum Saturday.

Named zk-snarks, Buterin wrote that by using the tech, ethereum can potentially scale "By a huge amount," up to 500 transactions per second, without relying on layer-two scaling solutions, such as Plasma or Raiden.

"We can actually scale asset transfer transactions on ethereum by a huge amount, without using layer 2s that introduce liveness assumptions, by using zk-SNARKs to mass-validate transactions."

Continuing, Buterin describes a method that includes a "Relayer" node, a kind of computer that performs the task of aggregating transactions in exchange for transaction fees.

"Anyone can be a relayer; there is no assumption of even an untrusted special 'operator' existing," Buterin added.

As a result, he estimated that such a setup could lead to gains of "~24x for ETH transactions and ~50x for ERC-20 transfers.

The proposal comes at a time when pressure is mounting on ethereum researchers to find ways to increase the transaction capacity of the platform.

A tweet by Parity communications officer Afri Schoedon on Friday urged developers to "Stop deploying dapps to ethereum. We are running at capacity."

In response, Buterin tweeted that zk-snark scaling solutions might alleviate the pressure faced by the ethereum blockchain.

In Saturday's forum comments, Buterin also said that, while aggregating transactions with zk-snarks is computationally intensive, the technology is likely to improve in the future.