zkVM
A virtual machine that reveals the consistency & veracity of its operations without revealing their contents. Zero-knowledge VMs are a relatively new type of execution environment designed to mask the computations they perform on submitted bytecode while at the same time providing proof that those computations were performed exactly as requested. To be considered valid, these virtualized execution environments must add cryptographic methods such that a verfier could independently arrive at the same results given the same inputs. Theoretically, any type of deterministic state machine can be implemented as a zkVM, including the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).
ZkVMs are one of the prevailing design patterns in the emerging field of trustless computation alongside technologies like homomorphic encryption and MPC. One community particularly interested in these technologies is the decentralized science, or “desci” community, which seeks to use trustless computation to leverage private clinical or research data for public good.
In the context of distributed ledger technologies, zkVMs are used to add privacy to smart contract computations while at the same time improving the scalability of the ledger by moving some of its computation off-chain. This are of research is closely related to turing-complete rollup technologies such as SNARKs and STARKs.
More information about the relationship between Notoros Lenses and zkVMs can be found on this page.