A universal ZK verification layer for Ethereum – any proof system <30k gas, no trusted setup

With all the discussion around L2 fragmentation lately (EEZ announcement, Superchain, AggLayer), I wanted to share something I've been working on that addresses the problem from a different angle.

The issue: every rollup ships its own proof system – Groth16, STARK, Plonk, Halo2, Nova – each needing a separate on-chain verifier at 200k+ gas. Some require trusted setup ceremonies.

GLYPH is a universal transparent verification layer that compiles any proof into a common intermediate representation (UCIR) and verifies it through a single on-chain contract.

What it does:

– Verifies any major proof system through one verifier

– <30k gas per on-chain verification (~7.5x cheaper than Groth16 alone)

– No trusted setup – fully transparent

– Supported: Groth16, KZG, IPA, Plonk, Halo2, STARK (Winterfell, Miden, Cairo/Stone, Circle STARK, Stwo), Nova/HyperNova/Sangria/SuperNova (IVC), SP1, Plonky2/3, Binius

How it works:

– Packed arity-8 sumcheck over p = 2^128 – 159

– Chain-bound Keccak256 Fiat-Shamir challenges

– BaseFold PCS

– On-chain verifier in pure Solidity assembly

– Formal proof pack with soundness bound ~1.88 x 10^-37

Tested on Sepolia + Hoodi. Benchmarks included and reproducible.

Everything is open source under MIT:

– Full Paper: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18792566
https://hackmd.io/@ChristopherSchulze/glyph-zk

– Code: https://github.com/Christopher-Schulze/glyph-zk

I know the on-chain assembly verifier needs a proper audit before anyone touches it in production – that's on the roadmap.

Would love feedback from the community.

Happy to answer any questions about the architecture or design decisions.