Paper 2021/590

An Algebraic Framework for Universal and Updatable SNARKs

Carla Ràfols and Arantxa Zapico

Abstract

We introduce Checkable Subspace Sampling Arguments, a new information theoretic interactive proof system in which the prover shows that a vector has been sampled in a subspace according to the verifier's coins. We show that this primitive provides a unifying view that explains the technical core of most of the constructions of universal and updatable pairing-based (zk)SNARKs. This characterization is extended to a fully algebraic framework for designing such SNARKs in a modular way, which leads to a new construction that is more efficient than the state-of-the-art in several dimensions.