Ernst & Young (EY), one of the largest audit and consulting companies, has released a public beta of an updated Ethereum privacy solution.
The release says that the solution is based on a third-generation zero knowledge of proof (ZKP) technology, which significantly increases the scalability of the blockchain and considerable reduces transaction costs.
“In the prior iteration released in April 2019, public blockchains were already getting competitive with private networks. With this iteration, we cut the cost per transaction by more than 90% again, making private transactions more accessible for mainstream business applications,”said Paul Brody, head of the EY blockchain division.
The new solution consolidates multiple private transactions to reduce the size of on-chain data and, consequently, costs.
“The new components of the ZKP blockchain technology include tools for batching multiple proofs together and a solution for reducing the size of an on-chain Merkle tree. The combination allows for up to 20 transactions to be done at once and cuts the cost per transaction to around US$0.05.”
According to the release, the updated version of the solution represents a 400-fold improvement than its original version, presented by EY in October 2018.
Brody is confident that the improved technology can also be used in Ethereum-based private blockchains, providing a “new level of security and privacy.” He also added that recently, corporations are increasingly interested in public blockchains.