Cysic¶

Cysic (Crypto-Systemic Identity & Computation) is a leading project focused on Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP) hardware acceleration. It is dedicated to dramatically improving ZKP generation speed and efficiency through specialized hardware design (FPGA and ASIC) and hardware-software co-optimization, aiming to become the foundational computing infrastructure for the ZK ecosystem.

Problems It Solves¶

With the rise of ZK-Rollups and zkEVMs, Zero-Knowledge Proof generation (Proving) has become the performance bottleneck of the entire system.

Computationally Intensive: Generating ZKP involves extensive cryptographic operations, such as Multi-Scalar Multiplication (MSM) and Number Theoretic Transform (NTT), which are extremely burdensome for general-purpose CPUs.
High Latency and Cost: Generating complex zkEVM proofs on ordinary hardware can take tens of minutes or even hours. This not only consumes large amounts of electricity but also increases the finality time of Layer 2.
Decentralization Barrier: If proof generation can only rely on expensive data center-grade servers, ordinary users cannot participate in the proving process, leading to centralization of the Prover role.

Cysic aims to solve these problems through hardware acceleration, reducing proof generation time by orders of magnitude.

Implementation Mechanism and Principles¶

Cysic takes a hardware-software combined optimization strategy, primarily divided into two phases: FPGA prototyping and ASIC chip mass production.

Hardware Architecture¶

Multi-Scalar Multiplication (MSM) Acceleration: MSM accounts for approximately 60%-70% of ZK proof generation computation. Cysic has designed a highly parallel pipeline architecture for processing elliptic curve point operations.
Number Theoretic Transform (NTT) Acceleration: For large-scale polynomial operations, Cysic optimized memory access patterns and bandwidth management to accelerate NTT computation.

Product Forms¶

SolarMSM: Cysic's early FPGA-based MSM acceleration solution, which demonstrated performance surpassing competing products in benchmarks.
Dedicated ASIC Chips: Compared to FPGAs, ASIC chips have greater advantages in power consumption and performance. Cysic is developing dedicated ZK mining chips designed, like Bitcoin miners, to efficiently produce proofs through specialized hardware.

Proving-as-a-Service¶

Cysic not only provides hardware but also builds a computing power network (Cysic Network). In this network: * Validators/Developers: Submit proving tasks. * Provers: Use Cysic's hardware computing power to complete tasks and earn rewards. This model forms a decentralized ZK computing power market, lowering the barrier for ZK projects to build their own infrastructure.

Key Features¶

Extreme Performance: Cysic's hardware solution aims to deliver the industry's fastest proof generation speeds, supporting real-time ZK application scenarios.
Broad Compatibility: Supports mainstream proof systems (such as Plonk, Groth16, Halo2) and elliptic curves (such as BN254, BLS12-381), serving multiple ZK-Rollup projects including Scroll, zkSync, and Aztec.
Ecosystem Enablement: As a "picks and shovels" provider, Cysic indirectly promotes the deployment of more complex ZK applications (such as ZK Machine Learning - ZKML) by providing cheap and fast computing power.