Verifiable compute has emerged as one of the more important pieces of technology to scale blockchains. While the field itself is certainly not new, its application throughout the broader web3 ecosystem has become an open surface area for experimentation and implementation. Bonsol is a new Solana native verifiable compute system that enables developers to create a fully verifiable executable over private and public data, mathematically guarantee its validity, and integrate the results into Solana smart contracts. Developers can use Bonsol to perform a variety of different tasks with private data and then prove them on-chain, removing the need to re-execute the entire process while guaranteeing the integrity of the execution. Ultimately, this minimizes centralized dependencies, reduces the surface area for attack, and optimizes performance since workloads can be publicly verified without running the computation again.
One of the more immediate practical applications of Bonsol is that it helps contain the ever-increasing costs associated with on-chain product logic by allowing developers to move this off-chain. Similarly, it helps developers avoid the need to implement more exotic logic into their systems and instead lets them port these computations off-chain. Overall, Bonsol helps to connect the on- and off-chain worlds through the use of trustless and verifiable methods. The end result includes enhanced capabilities, faster execution, and lower costs.
The use cases for Bonsol are vast and the design space is wide open. In the interest of kickstarting innovation in the Bonsol ecosystem, below are some interesting applications that are uniquely enabled through the protocol.
Storage and Transaction Proofs
One obvious and powerful instantiation of Bonsol is around storage and transaction proofs. Any application that needs to use historical transactions to make a given determination can directly benefit from Bonsol. This includes using transactions to prove historical ownership, to provide a chain of ownership, or to prove that a given event happened on chain.
Using this method of storage and transaction proofs, the Bonsol network would pull transaction history from an RPC, verify that the transactions are legitimate and then run a given application’s zero-knowledge program to determine what exactly is trying to be proven about the transactions. Bonsol will effectively verify that a specific transaction did (or did not) occur without requiring the application to execute all of the logic on-chain again, offloading this workload to the Bonsol network.
One immediate use case here is a verifiable database, in which Bonsol can be implemented to ensure data integrity. The protocol would prove each piece of data being ingested by the database as well as all of the data being retrieved when queried. So the end user would have guarantees about the correctness of the data being consumed, its origin (e.g. that it came from a specific server and is verified through a server’s certificate), and even its recency (e.g. that it is the current data within the database and is unchanged from what the server sent).
Oracles
In a similar vein, Bonsol can be used as a means of constructing a verifiable oracle in which it could prove the correctness and integrity of data being provided by sources that live on- or off-chain. In a very general way, therefore, Bonsol could substantially scale the capacity of a given oracle by performing all of the price updates, signature verifications, and other inputs off-chain, in a circuit, and then posting proofs containing the signed updates on-chain. This unlocks considerable capacity for a system of oracles as all of the heavy lifting they were once beholden to can be passed off-chain and proven by Bonsol.More specifically, Bonsol can be used in order to prove a valid transport layer security (TLS) and facilitate privacy and data security for communications over a given session with a host. The protocol can then post the output data onchain of that request in a way that is similar to TLS notary.
These types of verifiable oracles can be used in many important ways, including something as fundamental as a DEX price feed or something more on the user experience side such as intaking user data from traditional web2 applications and proving user identity on-chain.
Gaming Mechanics
Another interesting use case of Bonsol is towards games and game theoretic applications. More specifically, Bonsol enables developers to hide information from participants yet still allow them to claim a prize. Many types of games, raffles and hide reveal mechanics can be created based on Bonsol technology.
Nike, for instance, is famous (or infamous) for their raffling system. Limited releases such as Kobe and Jordan sneakers are often highly sought after and only obtainable through Nike’s raffling system. However, this remains a black box: no end user knows its underlying fairness. The end result is that users walk away with nothing and without fully knowing how the raffle actually worked. Obviously this is a more web2-focused example, but with Bonsol, developers can create these sorts of raffle or hide-reveal functions while allowing their audience to verifiably prove that the raffle was conducted in a fair manner.
This can be extended to many different areas within DeFi, and essentially any instance in which developers want the actual contents of a pool or basket of goods to be hidden from end users but enable them to verifiably prove the value or some other parameter of these contents.
Smart Wallets
Shifting towards the end user experience and simplifying user interactions, verifiable compute on Bonsol could be used to allow transactions on a smart wallet in a variety of useful ways. For instance, a wallet that requires biometric data proven in zero-knowledge to make a swap could leverage Bonsol to run this proving system. This also could be applied to a wallet that can use many types of signature schemes or to a wallet that relies on real world events being validated in the Bonsol runtime in order to make a transaction.Moreover, Bonsol could be used to create deeper security and compliance methods for users, such as limiting their wallet connections only to an OFAC list or facilitating safe trades by getting updated data around a given smart contract’s risk score.
Real World Assets
Bonsol can also extend into the real world asset (RWA) realm and serve as the backbone for running complex issuance systems for protocols that have their provenance off-chain. This could include a variety of critical touch points such as verifying the issuance of documents, checking the chain of title from data providers, and conforming authoritative documents for specific information.
Moreover, Bonsol could also help RWAs manage their on- and off-chain computational workloads. For instance, Chronicle has emerged as an oracle provider for a number of high-volume protocols including MakerDAO, Circle, and M^0. Chronicle oracle integrations help connect these blockchains with the outside world and smart contracts to execute based on external inputs and outputs. In order to function correctly, these oracles must verify collateral balances and other off-chain data.
Bonsol could be leveraged by different RWAs to help act as an independent validator that verifies various collateral balances, providing real-time information on the off-chain collateral used in the protocol (e.g. U.S. Treasuries locked in collateral in an off-chain storage facility).
These sorts of architectures help enhance the security and transparency of a given collateral verification process, ensuring the integrity and reliability of the RWA (e.g. $M cryptodollar, Circle's EURC stablecoin ). Ultimately, Bonsol can help deliver absolute transparency to RWA holders in a more performant way than the current infrastructure allows.
Lending
Bonsol’s method of verifiable compute could be applied to various lending and borrowing markets, especially ones that involve more complex underwriting criteria. This could include underwriting parameters that maintain the privacy of certain information, but which allow liquidity pools to observe the quality of underwriting that occurs underneath the hood for release of funds.This type of framework helps to preserve critical pieces of information that users would require to remain private in order to participate in the lending pool.
Cross Chain Activity Proofs
Another increasingly important area that Bonsol can contribute to is cross chain activity proving. As more chains continue to deploy, liquidity becomes more fragmented, and users move between different ecosystems, decentralized finance will become decidedly multi-chain. As a result, the importance of trust-minimized and efficient cross chain activity is paramount. Users and developers alike will need a reliable way to prove activity between a home chain and destination chain.
Bonsol can be applied here in order to provide a proof of activity happening on a destination chain before a corresponding activity occurs on their home chain. This includes the release of funds on the home chain and can extend to many ecosystem-critical activities, such as market maker and liquidity pool rebalancing after a cross chain swap. Ultimately, chains need a way to exchange data and tokens between each other in a frictionless, secure, and efficient manner. Bonsol provides the means to achieve this.
Dark Pools
The creation of dark pools and the different applications that can be built on top of them is another particularly interesting design space for Bonsol. In general, dark pools function by provisioning liquidity into a given pool and being able to prove the current balance of this liquidity pool without revealing depositors or traders. This enables strict privacy, optimal execution, and limited slippage.
Bonsol enables the creation of a dark pool in which no agent, whether they are an end user or a liquidity provider, can see the contents of the dark pool; it remains entirely obfuscated from everyone. This helps ensure optimal price execution and enables developers to create features such as the ability to fill orders privately within a dark pool or even across exchanges. In addition, Bonsol-enabled dark pools can help mitigate or even remove slippage altogether. Applications can leverage Bonsol to let users conceal their orders from the open market and then execute them entirely at their targeted price without being exposed to slippage.
ZK KYC
Similarly to some of the security and compliance primitives that Bonsol can create within smart wallets, the protocol can also be applied towards various KYC methods. One immediate application is that it allows users to prove their compliance without revealing their identity to the end product or application. Bonsol could ingest user inputs, run them through a compliance list off-chain (e.g. OFAC compliance list) and return the results back on-chain with guarantees that the user identity does indeed meet some threshold, and without revealing the user’s identity.
Proof of Work Token
Bonsol can be used to develop new proof-of-work token designs and incentive mechanisms. For instance, a developer can utilize Bonsol to create a sophisticated mining incentive around verifying zero-knowledge proofs. Ecosystem participants contribute computational power towards a workload and receive token rewards commensurate to the work they have done. Moreover, developers could use Bonsol to launch their own circuit just for proving and issue tokens for producing proofs. These sort of frameworks facilitated by the protocol create new layers of incentives that can be leveraged to influence outcomes and impact agent behavior in compelling ways.
Conclusion
The design space for verifiable compute and Bonsol is completely wide open right now. As users become more sophisticated and more liquidity enters the space, blockchains and the applications built on top of them will need to function in a highly performant and cost-efficient manner. Bonsol enables much of the heavy lifting to be taken off-chain while providing guarantees around the integrity of the results. These are just some of the many different areas that we’re excited about. To learn more and get started see our docs Here And if you’re interested in building or collaborating, please reach out Here or come join Anagram as an EIR to help build alongside us. More to come!
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