vitalik.eth: 33% chance SNARKs, FHE, and iO reach 1+ε overhead in the future

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vitalik.eth@vitalik.eth

One optimistic and still very-non-consensus belief I have about the far future of cryptography: I think that there is a 33% chance that, for average real-world computation, there exist ways to implement all three of what I call the Egyptian God Protocols (SNARK, FHE, iO) with 1+ε factor overhead (meaning, for large enough instances, the added overhead of cryptographizing a computation becomes arbitrarily small compared to the base cost of doing the computation itself) And a 60% chance that all three can be done with single-digit overhead (ie. <10x, measured in total cost of energy plus amortized compute) I think there's a good chance we'll get one of these (probably SNARKs with single-digit overhead) by the end of this decade. After all, we're already there for specialized hash functions and for some LLM inference.

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vitalik.eth: 33% chance SNARKs, FHE, and iO reach 1+ε overhead in the future

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Vitalik Buterin estimates a 33% chance that, for average real-world computation, SNARKs, FHE, and iO can each be implemented with 1+ε overhead, meaning the added cost of cryptographizing a computation becomes arbitrarily small relative to the base cost for large enough instances. He gives a 60% chance that all three can be done with single-digit overhead, below 10x measured in total energy cost plus amortized compute. He says a good chance exists of reaching one of these, probably SNARKs with single-digit overhead, by the end of this decade, pointing to existing results for specialized hash functions and some LLM inference.

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