New York — CertiK, the globe’s leading blockchain security firm, has announced the receipt of two significant research grants from the Ethereum Foundation, marking a notable milestone in its ongoing contribution to blockchain security and innovation. These grants, awarded as part of the Foundation’s Q1 2025 research grant program, recognize CertiK's pioneering efforts in the formal verification of zkEVM (Zero-Knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine) technology.
The grants are designated to support two critical research initiatives. The first focuses on simplifying the verification process for zkVM (Zero-Knowledge Virtual Machine) circuits. CertiK aims to develop novel methodologies that will streamline the verification of these circuits, particularly targeting the complexities associated with modular arithmetic and the challenges of packing multiple numbers into a single field. This work promises to enhance the efficiency and reliability of zkVM implementations.
The second research initiative involves evaluating the effectiveness of Verus, a verification tool designed for the Rust programming language, in confirming circuit integrity and verifying Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) precompiles written in Rust. This assessment will help determine how tools like Verus can be integrated into formal verification workflows for blockchain security, potentially broadening the scope of automated verification techniques.
Central to these efforts is zkEVM, an innovative extension within blockchain technology that aims to improve Ethereum’s scalability through advanced zero-knowledge proof systems. By enabling transaction computations to be processed off-chain and verified efficiently on-chain via succinct proofs, zkEVM significantly reduces transaction costs and boosts throughput. Despite these advantages, the complex architecture of zkEVM introduces substantial security challenges, underscoring the vital need for formal verification to ensure its correctness and security.
Formal verification employs rigorous mathematical methods to validate that software behaves correctly under all possible conditions. For zkEVM, this means rigorously proving its security properties to prevent bugs and vulnerabilities that could compromise the network.
CertiK’s success is built upon its patented “Advanced Formal Verification” technology, which represents a technological leap over conventional methods. Unlike traditional approaches that focus on abstract models or generic traits, CertiK’s platform targets actual codebases, verifying specific code properties relevant to real-world applications. Its automated framework tackles complex verification tasks more efficiently, reducing reliance on manual oversight and human expertise. Furthermore, it is designed for large-scale deployment, making it suitable for the rigorous demands of blockchain and Web3 projects, rather than being confined to academic research.
Since its inception, CertiK has heavily leveraged academic research to develop high-assurance security solutions for blockchain projects. The latest grants from the Ethereum Foundation show the company’s ongoing commitment to advancing formal verification techniques, ensuring the security and reliability of critical technologies like zkEVM, and strengthening trust across the decentralized ecosystem.
