Universal Security Provider Karak Partners With Space and Time To Improve Slashing Mechanism

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Image: Space and Time (SxT) x Karak

In a unique partnership, Karak, the decentralized security layer that provides universal security with any asset announced a partnership with Space and Time (SxT), a verifiable compute layer that enhances indexing across the blockchain ecosystem. The partnership will see Karak leverage SxT as a zero-knowledge co-processor solution to power a trustless slashing and rewards system for Karak’s Distributed Secure Services (DSS). Moreover, SxT will also develop a DSS on Karak for its ZK-compatible indexing service. 

Karak’s universal security layer makes it easy for developers to provide universal security with any digital asset. The platform unlocks a new design for developers to seamlessly and securely create innovative infrastructure systems, enabling new protocols to enhance their security from the first day. This enhances innovation in the Web 3 development space and eliminates the need for protocols to incentivize their validator sets with a highly dilutive reward mechanism.

Designed by Karak, the DSS service leverages restaked assets as universal security for protocols and DApps, similar to EigenLayer. However, the DSS framework is more scalable, extensible and flexible for protocols and developers to use. The service can be used to secure simple applications such as calculators to more complex ones such as DA marketplaces and ZK co-processors. The partnership with SxT aims to solve the slashing problem: finding the right amounts to be slashed in the quickest time possible, with the solution expected to be provided by SxT’sZK technology. 

“As DSSs onboard, one of the most critical pieces of information Karak requires is how to prove slashings on-chain,” the team statement reads. “Space and Time allows for slashing logic to be defined much faster, ultimately allowing for DSSs to be built and launched much faster.”

SxT provides a verifiable compute layer that scales zero-knowledge proofs on a decentralized data warehouse. Karak will leverage SxT’s technology to deliver trustless data processing, and further integrate the proof of SQL, the novel ZK-proof developed by SxT, to scale and secure computations on its slashing and rewards mechanism. 

SxT Partnership Will Improve Slashing And Rewards Mechanism

The partnership will design a decentralized verifiable compute network to ensure a trustless slashing and reward system for validators on the platform. 

The network will have three main parties, including a relayer contract that receives SQL query requests, emits events for the Space and Time network, and verifies and delivers query results. It will also include operators on SxT that will index on-chain DSS activities (such as completed jobs) and monitor query job events, routing them to available prover operators within the Space and Time network. Finally, provers, also on SxT will execute the queries, generate ZK proofs, and send results back to the relayer contract.

How it works

The Karak slashing contract will call the SxT relayer contract with the desired SQL statement that it is to verify. The relayer contract will then emit an event containing the query job details. The SxT operators will then “listen” to the query job emission on the source chain and route the job to an available operator in the SxT prover network, as shown in the image below. The SxT operators run ZK-compatible indexing nodes, which will also be deployed as a DSS. 

Image showing the flow and architecture of slashing on Karak after partnering with Space and Time (SxT)

Once the SxT provers validate the query, the operator executes the query, generating a ZK proof, and creating a cryptographic commitment on the queried data. The operator then sends these components back to the Space and Time relayer contract on the source chain via a relayed transaction. The relayer contract then verifies the query result and delivers it back to the original Karak slashing contract through a callback function. This then determines how much to slash a certain DSS on Karak. 

SxT Develops a DSS indexing platform on Karak

As part of the partnership, SxT will also build a DSS on Karak for its ZK-compatible indexing. This will be one of the SxT operators mentioned above. The DSS will be used for blockchain indexing, enabling community members to easily run indexing nodes in the SxT network. In the case of Space and Time, building a DSS is a perfect fit, especially for use cases such as decentralized data indexing which require the highest levels of security, incentive alignment, and decentralization.

This seamless integration of SxT on Karak will improve the universal security of platforms and protocols built on Karak as well as enable them to leverage SxT’s Zk-proof technology to index data for other DSSs. The partnership is expected to accelerate the “vision of universal, verifiable security for every developer, everywhere”, the statement concludes. 

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

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