Cryptocurrency developer who goes by the name Bobbin Threadbare, leader of Polygon Miden and former principal investigator of Facebook’s ZK, shares details of the latest MidenVM update, which is arguably the most technically advanced solution in rollups.
Polygon Miden Receives Crucial VM Update: Details
The Polygon team deployed a new version of Miden VM (v0.7), the latest version of their STARK-based Miden solution. It has an improved assembly language, an improved development library, and optimized data logistics. Details of the milestone were covered by Miden founder Bobbin Threadbare in his X thread.
The new version includes a series of improvements to Miden assembly language. This build provides support for nested modules and module aliases, constant value expressions, and debugging instructions for developers.
Additionally, the Miden standard library, a set of procedures that each Miden program can launch, now includes Compact Sparse Merkle trees with 256-bit keys and Falcon signature verification.
In terms of the virtual machine itself, Miden developers refactored the way the VM communicates with the host environment and optimized some internal components of the VM. The statement also included advanced reports on the execution of the program.
As a result, the performance of the entire virtual machine reached new highs that were recorded on several hardware devices:
In terms of performance, we re-ran all of our benchmarks: VM performance improved by about 30% compared to the last time we ran them. Overall, performance improved by about twofold compared to our level in early 2023.
Last but not least, the developers added benchmarks for proper testing for recursion.
Polygon Miden goes beyond EVM limitations
Acquired by Polygon in late 2021, Miden is an attempt to take Polygon (MATIC) instruments beyond EVM equivalence. Instead of EVM, Miden relies on its own virtual machine type, MidenVM.
Technically, it is a next-generation second layer solution for Ethereum (ETH) based on a transparent, scalable, zero-knowledge argument or zk-STARK.
As of 2022, Polygon Miden has been among the main focuses of Polygon’s (MATIC) ZK-centric developments.
Polygon Miden is the first blockchain to champion a new testing paradigm, i.e. “client-side testing.”
