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arXiv · 2512.10020

A Comparative Analysis of zk-SNARKs and zk-STARKs: Theory and Practice

Ayush Nainwal·Atharva Kamble·Nitin Awathare
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Abstract

Zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) are central to secure and privacy-preserving computation, with zk-SNARKs and zk-STARKs emerging as leading frameworks offering distinct trade-offs in efficiency, scalability, and trust assumptions. While their theoretical foundations are well studied, practical performance under real-world conditions remains less understood. In this work, we present a systematic, implementation-level comparison of zk-SNARKs (Groth16) and zk-STARKs using publicly available reference implementations on a consumer-grade ARM platform. Our empirical evaluation covers proof generation time, verification latency, proof size, and CPU profiling. Results show that zk-SNARKs generate proofs 68x faster with 123x smaller proof size, but verify slower and require trusted setup, whereas zk-STARKs, despite larger proofs and slower generation, verify faster and remain transparent and post-quantum secure. Profiling further identifies distinct computational bottlenecks across the two systems, underscoring how execution models and implementation details significantly affect real-world performance. These findings provide actionable insights for developers, protocol designers, and researchers in selecting and optimizing proof systems for applications such as privacy-preserving transactions, verifiable computation, and scalable rollups.

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Ayush Nainwal, Atharva Kamble, Nitin Awathare. 2025-12-10. A Comparative Analysis of zk-SNARKs and zk-STARKs: Theory and Practice. https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.10020

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