Boosting Efficiency and Security in Arithmetization-Oriented Hashing for Zero-Knowledge Proof Systems (opens in new tab)

Cryptographic compression functions are a core component of vector commitment schemes, including Merkle tree commitments, which are widely used in modern ZK-SNARK and STARK frameworks. Arithmetization-Oriented (AO) compression functions minimize multiplicative complexity over the framework's native field F_p, making them significantly more efficient than bit-oriented designs in algebraic circuits. To date, AO compression functions have been almost exclusively constructed by applying the Spong...