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Ethereum researchers race to patch zkEVM proof gap on better.codes
On Aug. 21, the live leaderboard for koalaIRS12 showed a 52.14-bit gap after nine submissions, with organizers stressing the score is a spot-check, not full protocol security.
Ethereum researchers participating in the better.codes contest are working to narrow a measured cryptographic proof gap tied to zkEVM research, with organizers framing the leaderboard as a reproducible distance between what is certified safe and what an upper certificate still flags as unsafe.
According to CryptoSlate, at 15:44:47 UTC on Aug. 21 the live leaderboard for koalaIRS12 showed a 63.99-bit lower certificate and a 116.13-bit upper certificate, leaving 52.14 bits unresolved after nine promoted submissions from seven solvers.
The contest defines two tracks, where the soundness track aims to raise the lower certificate and the attack track aims to lower the upper certificate, each with distinct theorem-style justifications pinned to a specific challenge environment.
CryptoSlate notes that the repository score is explicitly treated as a spot-check quantity and not as a direct minus-log2 of whole-system soundness or as full-protocol security, and it describes additional verification layers needed to move from component-level results toward broader production assurance.
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