Handan Kilinc Alper
Handan is a cryptographer with a strong background in designing and analyzing cryptographic protocols. She earned her Ph.D. in Cryptography from EPFL, where she focused on secure localization, distance-bounding protocols, and proof-of-location systems.
Previously, Handan worked at the Web3 Foundation as a researcher, where she made contributions to Polkadot's design and security analysis.
Currently, Handan is a researcher at =nil; Foundation, where she works on the architecture of zkSharding, a novel sharded zkRollup design, and its communication with Ethereum through the zkSharding-L1 bridge. Her research focuses on scaling decentralized systems while maintaining security and interoperability.
Her work has been published in leading cryptography conferences and journals, and her research interests include blockchain interoperability, verifiable random functions, and fair exchange protocols.
Please list my affiliation as '=nil; Foundation' and tag @nil_foundation on Twitter
Session
Blockchain scalability remains a central challenge in decentralized application ecosystems. Sharding has long been heralded as a promising approach for scalability, yet its implementation remains difficult due to asynchronous cross-shard interactions and execution bottlenecks. In Ethereum, these challenges are critical as it seeks to maintain decentralization, security, and composability while scaling to meet demand.
This talk introduces zkSharding, a sharded zkRollup design for Ethereum. zkSharding enables parallel transaction processing across independent shards while relying on Ethereum’s settlement layer for data availability and state validation. Its architecture ensures shard-level processing remains isolated yet interoperable, addressing cross-shard communication complexities.
zkSharding's architecture comprises:
Execution Shards: Independent shards process transactions in parallel, leveraging shared token standards for seamless cross-shard interactions.
Main Shard: Coordinates global state synchronization and validates cross-shard messaging.
Ethereum (L1): Provides settlement and data availability.
The design of zkSharding is based on several key innovations:
ShardDAG: A robust DAG enforces transaction ordering and data availability through rules ensuring state alignment and cross-shard consistency.
Async Calls: Non-blocking communication enables parallelism and avoids execution halts during cross-shard interactions.
Prover Network: Integrates a distributed proving system using novel design BOIL for efficient aggregation of zkProofs.
Fast Processing: Non-atomic transactions enable near-instantaneous execution while preserving security through ZKPs and Ethereum settlement layer.
Fee Optimization: A local fee model dynamically adjusts shard-specific base fees and incorporates mechanisms like message premiums and discounts to balance network load and incentivize efficient cross-shard transactions.
In this talk, we will explore zkSharding's detailed architecture and how it addresses fundamental scalability challenges. Additionally, we will highlight zkSharding’s most significant advantage: enabling applications, such as DEXs, to be natively composable across shards.