ZK-Verified Computation Gateway (ZKCG)

ZK-Verified Computation Gateway (ZKCG) is a Rust-based protocol node that enables trustless verification of off-chain computation using zero-knowledge proofs.

The system allows clients to submit proofs that a computation was executed correctly and satisfies protocol-defined policies, without revealing private inputs or requiring the verifier to re-execute the computation.

Motivation

Modern systems increasingly rely on off-chain computation for performance, scalability, and privacy reasons. However, verifiers currently face a difficult tradeoff:

• Trust the computation provider ❌
• Re-execute the computation ❌
• Centralize computation ❌

ZKCG resolves this by verifying zero-knowledge proofs of correct computation, allowing results to be accepted without trust or recomputation.

Design Goals

• Protocol-first: Explicit state machine and deterministic transitions
• Trustless verification: No trust in the prover or execution environment
• Privacy-preserving: Private inputs are never revealed
• Production-oriented: Long-running verifier node, not a demo
• Extensible: Supports multiple proof backends (circuits, zkVMs)

High-Level Architecture

Prover (Client) | |-- private computation |-- ZK proof generation v ZKCG Verifier Node (Rust) | |-- proof verification |-- policy enforcement |-- state transition v Persistent Protocol State

Core Concepts

Actors

• Prover: Performs computation and generates a ZK proof
• Verifier Node: Validates proofs and enforces protocol rules
• Observer: Reads public protocol state (optional)

State

The protocol maintains a deterministic state consisting of:

• Merkle commitment root
• Monotonically increasing nonce
• Epoch/version identifier

Policy Enforcement

A proof is accepted only if:

• The ZK proof verifies successfully
• Protocol-defined policy constraints are satisfied
• State transition rules are respected

A valid proof alone is not sufficient to update state.

Use Case (Phase 1)

Private Risk / Score Verification

A prover demonstrates that a score computed from private data satisfies a public threshold, without revealing the underlying data or intermediate values.

This pattern applies to:

• credit or risk checks
• compliance validation
• private eligibility proofs

Roadmap

Phase 1 (Core Protocol)

• Deterministic state machine
• Circuit-level ZK proof verification
• Policy enforcement
• Replay protection
• Persistent state storage

Phase 2 (Power Move)

• Pluggable proof backends
• zkVM integration
• Proof backend abstraction
• Comparative benchmarks

Repository Structure

zk-compute-gateway/ ├── SPEC.md # Protocol specification ├── SECURITY.md # Threat model and assumptions ├── verifier/ # Rust verifier node ├── circuits/ # ZK circuits ├── zkvm/ # zkVM integrations (Phase 2) ├── tests/ ├── benches/ └── docs/

Status

This project is under active development and is currently pre-release. Interfaces and specifications may evolve.

License

This project is licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0.

The Apache-2.0 license was chosen to allow broad use in both open-source and commercial systems, while providing an explicit patent grant.