Hey there 👋🏾

I am Godspower Eze and I am working towards implementing a verkle library in the Nim Programming Language.

This is how week 1 went.

What did I learn this week?

I learnt a lot!

I started out by completing my study on the Verkle Tree paper. And then, watched a video by Dankrad feist which cemented my fundamental knowledge of how a verkle works.

Having understood how a verkle tree worked, I figured that the cryptographic commitment scheme used was a critical part of implementing a verkle tree so I intentionally feel into the rabbit hole of cryptography. I don't think I want to come back out.

Just in case you were asking, a cryptographic commitment scheme like a sealed envelope. The sender wants to make sure that the content inside the envelope is secret (hiding) and the receiver wants to be able to ascertain the authenticity of the content of the envelope on opening it (binding). hiding and binding are two properties of cryptograhic commitment schemes.

For the most part of week 1, I learnt about cryptography.

I started out with ciphers and advanced to the discrete log problem, diffie-hellman key exchange and RSA.

Is that all I did for week 1?

Actually, no.

I also did something that I am really excited about.

As I learnt, I implemented. I created a repo that contains cryptographic techniques I learn about. Check it out here.

I intend to update this repository throughtout the program and beyond.

It serves as a learning material for myself and hopefully others.

Resources I used

• Paper on Verkle trees
• PEEPanEIP #46: Verkle tries for Ethereum state with Dankrad Feist
  
• Cryptographic Commitments
• Explaining the Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange
  
• Cryptography Course on Khan Academy

Plan for week 2

I intend to learn and implement elliptic curve crytography. LFG!