Aleo: An Innovative Blockchain for Privacy Protection and Scalability

Aleo is a blockchain project focused on privacy protection, achieving higher privacy and scalability through zero-knowledge proof technology. Its core idea is to allow users to authenticate their identity and process data without disclosing personal information.

Project Overview

Privacy

The core of Aleo is zero-knowledge proof technology, which allows transactions and the execution of smart contracts to be carried out while maintaining privacy. Users' transaction details are hidden by default, while allowing for selective disclosure when necessary, making it very suitable for the development of DeFi applications. The main components include:

1. Leo Compiled Language: Specifically designed for developing zero-knowledge applications, reducing the requirements for developers' knowledge of cryptography.

2. snarkVM and snarkOS: snarkVM allows off-chain execution of computations, with only the verification of results on-chain, enhancing efficiency. snarkOS ensures the security of data and computations, allowing permissionless functionality execution.

3. zkCloud: Provides a secure and private off-chain computing environment that supports multi-party programming interactions.

Aleo also provides an integrated development environment and software development kits, supporting rapid application development and deployment.

Scalability

Aleo adopts an off-chain processing method, where transactions are first computed on the user's device, and then only the verification results are uploaded to the Blockchain. This greatly improves transaction processing speed and system scalability, avoiding network congestion and high fees.

Consensus mechanism

Aleo has introduced AleoBFT, a hybrid architecture consensus mechanism that combines the instant finality of validators with the computational power of provers. Key features:

1. Block quick finality: Ensure that each block is confirmed immediately after it is generated.

2. Decentralized Assurance: By separating block production from coinbase generation, it prevents a few entities from monopolizing the network.

3. Incentive mechanism: Validators and provers share block rewards, encouraging participation in network operations.

Aleo allows the development of applications without gas limitations, suitable for long-running applications such as machine learning.

Latest Developments

1. ARC-100 proposal approved: Involves compliance and security measures, final adjustments are underway.

2. Validator Incentive Program: Launching on July 1st and continuing until July 15th, distributing 1 million Aleo points as rewards.

3. Initial Supply and Circulation: The initial supply is 1.5 billion tokens, with an initial circulation of approximately 10%.

4. Testnet Beta Reset: Added ARC-41 and new puzzle features.

5. Code freeze: Completed one week ago.

6. Verification Node Expansion: Initially 15 nodes, with a target to increase to 50 within the year, ultimately reaching 500.

Synthesis Puzzle Algorithm Update

The new algorithm no longer focuses on zk proof result generation, removing MSM and NTT calculations, and instead focuses on witness generation. Main process:

1. A fixed EpochProgram is generated for each epoch.

2. Use nonce as a random seed to generate EpochProgram input.

3. Aggregate R1CS and inputs, compute witness.

4. Convert the witness into Merkle tree leaf nodes.

5. Calculate the Merkle root and convert it to proof_target.

6. Submit the solution and broadcast if the conditions are met.

This update changes the puzzle from generating proof to generating witness, with consistent logic calculations within each epoch but significant differences between different epochs. The new algorithm presents challenges for GPU optimization, making parallelization somewhat difficult.