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zkApps explainer (continued)
A zkApp is essentially a summary of proven statements located within an account on the Mina blockchain (inside of the Mina ledger).
Users can interact with zkApps by sending special “zkApp transactions” to the Mina blockchain. These zkApp transactions contain proofs which represent proposed updates to accounts in the Mina ledger, where each update is predicated on some facts being true about the Mina blockchain state.
In a sense, this means that a zkApp transaction is saying “If X is true, then Y is now true if you do Z to the Mina ledger”.
Using this model, a zkApp can do everything from moving Mina between accounts in the ledger all the way up to updating the summaries of statements proven by the contents of all zkApp transactions submitted to the chain.
Conceptually, proofs can prove any statement a developer wants, but most importantly, proofs can prove the execution of computer programs.
This paradigm, referred to as “verifiable computing”, allows for zkApps to represent the execution of arbitrary computer programs in addition to proving information derived from arbitrary data sources (including private data).
Will Cove@WillCove
a quick explainer on zkApps vs smart contracts on Mina Smart contract platforms like Ethereum are sequential. They're not concurrent. Actions come in concurrently, but they're executed completely sequentially. zkApps on Mina are accounts that are receiving updates that are entirely concurrent to each other. They all have race conditions to each other, so smart contracts on Mina are a way of taking that concurrency pattern and funneling it in one way so it’s sequential. Concurrency is actually a desirable property in a lot of cases, eg performing distributed joint operations. traditional smart contract platforms can't support these types of use cases with the same flexibility.
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