Coda: Proof-of-stake and recursive zk-SNARKs in practice

This talk will describe the practical application of many of the topics of this program, including recent advancements in consensus and ZKP systems, in the Coda cryptocurrency.

Coda is a cryptocurrency which has a succinct blockchain, meaning users can sync with the network by obtaining a constant amount of data and performing a constant amount of computation.

It achieves this by leveraging recursive composition of zk-SNARKs. For consensus, it uses a proof-of-stake protocol related to Ouroboros Genesis but reworked to function in the setting of a succinct blockchain.

As time permits, we will discuss how to write SNARKs for large, complex programs while maintaining efficiency and correctness, techniques Coda uses for decoupling throughput from the efficiency of SNARK provers, and how distributed proof production occurs in Coda.