Slobodan Lukovic

ZisK has reached a major proving milestone for Ethereum. All Ethereum blocks are now being proven in real time, with an average proof time of about 7.5s

The Skyline Bridge is almost here. A decentralized bridge between Apex Fusion and Cardano. Built for real assets, designed for speed, secured by design, optimized for efficiency, and ready to extend the UTXO frontier. Stay tuned.

A common misconception about ASIC-based platforms is that they are fixed, single-function computing devices that cannot be reprogrammed or adapted for various tasks without a complete redesign. While this is true for ASICs designed with very narrow, specific instructions—such as SHA-256 hashing for Bitcoin mining—these devices typically have minimal firmware and simple communication interfaces, focusing exclusively on a single dedicated task. Now, imagine extending an ASIC’s capabilities to support more complex workloads, like Google Cloud Tensor Processing Units (TPUs). These devices remain ASICs at their core but are managed by low-level firmware and enhanced with a custom-built, domain-specific compiler stack. This allows them to efficiently handle a wide range of AI model computations rather than being limited to a single function. Taking this concept further, consider integrating a full CPU into an ASIC chip along with specialized extensions for specific operations. In this case, rather than completely redesigning the firmware, we would only need to optimize mainstream compilers to support these extensions. The result? A powerful, programmable device that can be used as a server card or a standalone unit, capable of running high-level programming languages while benefiting from native, dedicated instruction sets. This approach enables significantly faster execution than traditional computing architectures—similar to how ARM-based Snapdragon processors optimize performance in mobile devices. In our case, we extend the well-established RISC-V processor, leveraging its robust tooling and strong community support. This allows compatibility with mainstream programming languages while incorporating dedicated hardware support for major cryptographic operations, such as signature verification, hashing, and NTT/FFT computations. The outcome is an unprecedented reduction in computation time and cost for key blockchain operations.