Ernst & Young (EY), one of the world’s largest professional services networks, has announced a major update to its Ethereum-focused blockchain platform, Nightfall. Previously operating with an optimistic rollup design, EY has rebuilt Nightfall as a zero-knowledge rollup, a change that reduces the waiting period for transaction finality and significantly simplifies the platform’s architecture.
The updated version, now known as Nightfall_4, was released on Wednesday and offers a range of advantages to users. The switch from an optimistic rollup to a zero-knowledge rollup replaces the cryptoeconomic approach with a cryptographic one. This change eliminates the need for challenge periods, which were previously necessary to confirm transaction accuracy. These periods could potentially delay the finality of transactions for several days.
In a statement released by EY, the company explained that the updated design means there is “no need to accommodate challenging incorrect blocks.” Furthermore, Nightfall_4 provides the “same privacy and scaling that version 3 enabled, but now with near-instant finality and a simplified architecture,” said Paul Brody, global blockchain lead at EY.
Despite the announcement, EY’s public GitHub repository for Nightfall_4 and its supporting tools is yet to reflect the changes, currently returning a 404 error. EY has not yet provided a comment regarding this.
The transition from optimistic rollups to a zero-knowledge rollup design offers more than just increased speed. Unlike optimistic rollups, which rely on game-theoretic security assumptions and economic incentives to detect fraudulent activity, zero-knowledge rollups offer stronger cryptographic guarantees. This new design also improves privacy, with zero-knowledge proofs allowing for transaction validation without the need to reveal underlying data.
Despite being open-source, Nightfall remains permissioned for EY’s corporate clients. It allows for private transactions on the Ethereum network, while still offering the security benefits of the main network and reducing costs. Moreover, the integration of industry-standard identity certificates ensures that anonymous usage is prevented while transaction privacy is preserved.
Since beginning the development of Nightfall in 2019, EY has shown a strong commitment to the Ethereum network. In a 2022 interview with Decrypt, an EY blockchain lead stated that the firm aims “to be the best on earth at Ethereum.” This recent update comes at a time when regulatory conditions for privacy technologies are improving, following the U.S. Treasury’s decision to lift sanctions on Tornado Cash, a previously blacklisted crypto mixer.
Sebastian Sinclair edited this article.
