# EPF Cohort 6 Updates – Week 10

This week I focused on completing the remaining work for benchmarking Ream's Beacon State, with major developments taking place in this area.

## Benchmarking Progress

For the [consenzero-bench](https://github.com/ReamLabs/consenzero-bench) repository I had added some significant changes to my PR as requested by Unnawut. Specifically I abstracted block operations and epoch operations into rust traits so that its easier to read the codebase and add more functionality later. I'll be waiting for response from Unnawut and hopefully the PR gets merged in a day!

**PR Link:** https://github.com/ReamLabs/consenzero-bench/pull/25

I had also started to analyse the flamegraphs for Guest programme, and its really simple to do inside Risc-Zero there's an entire [guide](https://dev.risczero.com/api/zkvm/profiling) for it as well


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I have also started work with [consensp1us](https://github.com/ReamLabs/consensp1us/) repository to add the functionality of epoch operations as well. Also currently the project was using a previous version of SP1, therefore I had updated the rust toolchain and sp1 release accordingly. However I got some errors upon doing that and I'll be contacting the SP1 team.

## Pico zkVM Integration

**Repository:** https://github.com/x-senpai-x/consenpico-bench

My current implementation tracks the entire guest's risc-v execution cycles and not for individual operations, I had talked to Pico's team and currently they haven't implemented the functionality of cycle tracker inside Guest yet.
Therefore I had created an issue for the same inside Pico.
**Issue Link:** https://github.com/brevis-network/pico/issues/47

I have also discussed the possibility of contributing towards implementing this feature myself, and I am awaiting their response for the same as well.

## Contributing to Pico

Although not a very significant upgrade but yes my PR inside Pico got merged

**PR Link:** https://github.com/brevis-network/pico-zkapp-template/pull/2

## Jolt Notes

Two weeks ago Jolt released a significant update integrating the Twist-Shout functionality thus replacing the previously used Spice-Lasso functionality being used.
They had updated their documentation as well accordingly. This gave me an opportunity to dig deep into Jolt: their [documentation](https://jolt.a16zcrypto.com/), [whitepaper](https://eprint.iacr.org/2023/1217) and [codebase](https://github.com/a16z/jolt).

I read their whitepaper understood deeply how LookUp tables are being computed and queried (via Lasso) and how Registers and RAM are being read/write to (via Spice). I also got to know about how a VM works in general and got even more familiar with Polynomial Commitment Schemes and more importantly "Virtual Instructions".

After reading the whitepaper I hopped onto the documentation to learn more about what exactly changes with the Twist-Shout update, and how exactly SPARTAN is being utilized for Arithmetization of constrints (~R1CS) however some of the portions are still under construction, therefore I'll now instead be reading the entire [paper](https://eprint.iacr.org/2025/105) on them instead !

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Also I had integrated the execution cycles inside [consenJolt](https://github.com/x-senpai-x/consenJolt), however I am currently facing an error. My laptop while running the program lags a lot and abruptly shuts down, I'll be informing Michael about the same as well, who has helped a lot in my work on Benchmarking Beacon STF on Jolt.

## 3SF Updates

I had talked with Unnawut and other people working on PQ-devnet and it seems the best approach right now would be to wait for the consensus-specs to be created (which will be around 2 weeks) and meanwhile me and Dimitris can work on Beacon State Transition Functions Benchmarking and finish it completely.

## Ream-ZKVM-Benchmarks
I have been reading and getting more familiar with the internal architecture of all the zkvms and I'll add all of this inside https://github.com/x-senpai-x/Ream-ZKVM-Benchmarks.

## Next Week's Goals

- [ ] Contact all the zkVm teams and get rid of all the errors I am facing. Get benchmarks ready for comparison for RiscZero, SP1, Jolt and Pico
- [ ] Get more familiar with Jolt's codebase and read the Paper on Twist and Shout.
- [ ] Add benchmarks for sanity_blocks(), fork_choice() and merkle_proof() inside ZKVMs