Few things are more romantic than optimizing for gas costs. OK, it’s about as romantic as getting your teeth cleaned. Still, getting your teeth cleaned is important, and so is optimizing for gas costs and doing preliminary audits. Using the code from my prior article on zk-SNARK in an ETH tumbler, here’s what I improved:
Gas Optimization: Curtailing Profligate ExpenditureThe prior contract, while a functional zk-SNARK mixer, squandered gas on redundant storage writes, oversized types, and verbose events. We’ve optimized with surgical precision:
These changes don’t touch the zk-SNARK verifier’s gas footprint — typically 200,000–500,000 gas for pairing-heavy proofs — but trim the contract’s overhead, leaving more headroom for proof submission.
Reentrancy Mitigation: Sealing Recursive Exploits
The prior withdraw and emergencyWithdraw functions courted disaster by issuing .call transfers before state updates, a classic reentrancy vector. A malicious recipient contract could reenter, resubmitting a valid zk-SNARK proof before withdrawn or nullifiers updated, draining the mixer. We’ve fortified:
Checks-Effects-Interactions (CEI):
This CEI adherence is non-negotiable in a contract handling ETH payouts alongside zk-SNARK proofs, where state consistency is paramount.
Overflow Safeguards: Arithmetic Integrity
Solidity ^0.8.0’s built-in overflow checks already protect uint256 ops (e.g., block.number + dep.delayBlocks), reverting on wraparound. We’ve refined further:
Typed Precision:
These type choices align with zk-SNARK’s deterministic rigor, ensuring timing predicates hold without edge-case failures.
The Code// SPDX-License-Identifier: MITFor Solidity and zk-SNARK adepts, this iteration optimizes gas by slashing storage and event costs, fortifies reentrancy via CEI, and locks down overflows with type discipline — all without perturbing the zk-SNARK core (commitment/nullifier/proof triplet). The verifier’s gas heft remains a bottleneck — pairing ops in verifyProof dominate — but could be mitigated with precompiles or relayers, topics beyond this scope. The result is a leaner, safer mixer, primed for audit and deployment by those wielding proving keys and Etherscan alike.
About Dana: Dana is a seasoned expert with over three decades in technology, specializing in AI, blockchain, ML, cryptocurrency, Web3, and decentralized finance (DeFi). A pioneer in Bitcoin and blockchain since 2011 and AI/ML since 2007, Dr. Love has driven innovation across these fields. In 2024, he served as CTO of a decentralized AI platform focused on real-world asset (RWA) tokenization. From 2022–24, he was a cryptoeconomist and core contributor to the Cosmos-based Dyme Protocol, where he also built an award-winning Web3 social network. As founder of Radpay (2018–22), a blockchain payment platform, he earned recognition as a fintech innovator from 500 Startups and the Arizona Commerce Authority. Earlier, Dana led four blockchain ICOs (2012–18) and spearheaded AI-driven data systems as CEO of Bright Dawn (2007–12). His career spans leadership roles at firms like Metacloud (Cisco Investments) and Radnet (Warburg Pincus), with a foundation in civilian service to the U.S. government. Dr. Dana Love holds a doctorate in public policy economics from the University of Glasgow, is a Harvard Business School Baker Scholar, and graduated from the University of Richmond.
Optimizing Gas Costs in a zk-SNARK ETH Tumbler was originally published in Coinmonks on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
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