Incrementally Verifiable Ledger Systems (IVLS)

This arkworks library describes an interface and contains an implementation for incrementally verifiable ledger systems (IVLS).

An IVLS adds additional security properties to a ledger system, which consists of a state, a transition function, and a client function that reads data from the state. (Blockchains and transparency logs are two of the most prominent examples of ledger systems.) In an IVLS, each state is augmented with a proof that it has been achieved through valid transactions, and a succinct commitment relative to which the client function's answers can be proved. All proofs are succinct and can be efficiently verified.

This library is released under the MIT License and the Apache v2 License (see License).

WARNING: This is an academic proof-of-concept prototype, and in particular has not received careful code review. This implementation is NOT ready for production use.

The library includes a circuit-specific setup IVLS compiler and a universal setup IVLS compiler. The transition function is built on top of the arkworks PCD library, and the PCD type (which is in turn determined by the underlying SNARK type) determines the type of the IVLS compiler. IVLS is built on top of the Merkle tree implemented here.

Build guide

The library compiles on the stable toolchain of the Rust compiler. To install the latest version of Rust, first install rustup by following the instructions here, or via your platform's package manager. Once rustup is installed, install the Rust toolchain by invoking:

rustup install stable

After that, use cargo, the standard Rust build tool, to build the libraries:

git clone https://github.com/arkworks-rs/ivls.git
cd ivls
cargo build

Tests

This library comes with comprehensive unit and integration tests. Run the tests with:

cargo test --all

License

The crates in this repo are licensed under either of the following licenses, at your discretion.

• Apache License Version 2.0 (LICENSE-APACHE or http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0)
• MIT license (LICENSE-MIT or http://opensource.org/licenses/MIT)

Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution submitted for inclusion in this library by you shall be dual licensed as above (as defined in the Apache v2 License), without any additional terms or conditions.