International Association
for Cryptologic Research

We introduce the notion of a succinct blockchain, a replicated state machine in which each state transition (block) can be efficiently verified in constant time regardless of the number of prior transitions in the system. Traditional blockchains require verification time linear in the number of transitions. We show how to construct a succinct blockchain using recursively composed succinct non-interactive arguments of knowledge (SNARKs). Finally, we instantiate this construction to implement Coda, a payment system (cryptocurrency) using a succinct blockchain. Coda offers payment functionality similar to Bitcoin, with a dramatically faster verification time of 200ms making it practical for lightweight clients and mobile devices to perform full verification of the system’s history.