StarkWare announces lightweight Bitcoin verification for use on mobile devices

The lightweight zero-knowledge proof will allow Bitcoin users to verify payments without having to download the full blockchain history.

StarkWare, a company specializing in zero-knowledge (ZK) technology, a way of verifying information without revealing the specific contents of that information, said it created a ZK verification of the Bitcoin (BTC) blockchain that can run on mobile devices.

The proof contains all the Bitcoin block headers from the genesis block until the present, but not the full and detailed Bitcoin blockchain history, which is over 680 gigabytes in size. 

Each block header includes the version number of the Bitcoin software used to mine the block, a reference to the previous block in the chain, a timestamp, the block size and the nonce — the random number the miner has to find to add the block to the ledger.

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