Polygon Announces Polygon Miden – A STARK-Based, Ethereum-Compatible Rollup

The newest member of the Polygon solution suite – Polygon Miden, an upcoming STARK-based, EVM-compatible rollup. The project is led by Bobbin Threadbare, former Facebook’s core ZK researcher who led the development of Winterfell.

Polygon Miden’s core component – Miden VM, the first open-source STARK-based VM. and will continue working and investing in this and other Polygon’s ZK-based efforts, with the ultimate goal of becoming the industry’s leading ZK powerhouse.

What is Polygon Miden?

Polygon Miden will be a STARK-based ZK Rollup. ZK Rollups are very promising solutions but their main drawback is that it is hard for them to support arbitrary logic and transactions, including those of the EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine). Polygon Miden solves this challenge using its core component – Miden VM, a STARK-based virtual machine. Miden VM supports arbitrary logic and transactions and has one important additional feature – for any program executed on the VM a STARK-based proof of execution is automatically generated. This proof can then be used by anyone to verify that a program was executed correctly, without the need for re-executing the program or even knowing what the program was. With Miden VM, it becomes somewhat straightforward to build a ZK Rollup that can execute any transaction and program, including those currently living on Ethereum.

SOURCE:
Polygon