Microsoft Research unveils Magnetar, the fastest zkVM at 10-39x speedups and post-quantum security
jedisct1 · x · 2026-10-16
Microsoft Research introduced Magnetar, billed as the first zkVM that is (1) general-purpose (RV64), (2) post-quantum from standard hashes alone (no curves, lattices, or Poseidon), and (3) built for recursion.
Performance: despite its conservative security assumptions, it's the fastest zkVM — 7.2–8.7 MHz on a laptop, 10–39× faster than existing zkVMs across 15 workloads; an optimized version reaches 9.5–12.8 MHz.
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