Logan Allen: Nockchain's Global Competition for Useful ZK Proof of Work Miners Kicks Off

This episode unveils Nockchain's ambitious plan to revolutionize Layer 1 blockchains with a ZK Proof-of-Work system, aiming to create a global, permissionless competition for useful compute power.

Logan Allen's Journey to Nockchain

• Logan Allen, founder of Zorp and Nockchain, shares his background, starting from an interest in Bitcoin leading to dropping out of Georgia Tech, working at Tlon on Urbit with Curtis Yarvin, and eventually returning to crypto.
• His core interest lay in the Nock instruction set, an extremely minimal computation system. Logan explored its potential within a ZKVM (Zero-Knowledge Virtual Machine) context, which is a virtual machine that can prove the correctness of its computations using zero-knowledge proofs.
• Initial research confirmed the feasibility of creating a highly performant ZKVM using Nock's binary tree structures. This led to the decision to build a new L1 (Layer 1 blockchain), a foundational blockchain network like Bitcoin or Ethereum.
  • Logan explains, "it really seems like you would be able to get these binary trees that this Nock instruction set uses and make them really really fast in a ZKVM."

The Genesis of Nockchain: A New L1 Vision

• The Nockchain team, including Logan, debated the best application for their performant ZKVM, considering ZK's benefits like scalability, privacy, and on-chain verification.
• They opted to build an L1, Nockchain, driven by an interest in Bitcoin's fair launch model and a desire for a different approach than the high FDV (Fully Diluted Valuation) proof-of-stake launches prevalent in 2022. FDV refers to the total value of a crypto project assuming all its tokens are in circulation.
• Nockchain is designed as a no-premine, proof-of-work (PoW) L1. PoW is a consensus mechanism where miners compete to solve complex computational puzzles to validate transactions and create new blocks, with Bitcoin being the most prominent example.
• Crucially, Nockchain employs ZK Proof-of-Work (ZK-PoW), where miners generate ZK proofs as their work, aiming for these proofs to eventually power the chain, creating "useful proof-of-work."

Rationale for a New L1: Simplicity, Programmability, and ZK

• Logan, a long-time Bitcoin enthusiast, appreciated its proof-of-work model and minimalism but desired more programmability.
• He found Ethereum "very big and complicated," lacking a cohesive underlying foundation despite its impressive research components, attributing this partly to its pioneering role and inherited technical debt.
• The Nockchain team saw an opportunity to build a new L1 leveraging modern cryptographic advancements, particularly ZK proofs, to achieve trustlessness, privacy, and flexible execution models (on-chain or off-chain).
• A key motivation was to simplify the developer experience and reduce the reliance on expensive, high-stakes audits common in complex smart contract environments. Logan desired "a much simpler computation layer where if I wanted to build something, I could just plug some proofs into it and it would just work."
• Strategic Implication: Nockchain aims to combine Bitcoin's security and simplicity ethos with advanced programmability through ZK, potentially attracting developers frustrated by existing L1 trade-offs.

Introducing ZK-PoW: The Core of Nockchain

• The team identified a market mismatch: significant venture investment in ZK proof acceleration hardware but a lack of easy integration and profitable business models for these hardware providers.
• Logan found the concept of standalone "proof markets" dissatisfying due to the circular problem of needing simultaneous developer demand, cheap proofs, and profitable provers.
• ZK-PoW (referred to by Logan as ZKpow) is Nockchain's solution: a global, permissionless competition to optimize the Nock ZKVM's speed and build proving capacity.
  • This is distinct from traditional hashing-based PoW. Miners in Nockchain are actively generating ZK proofs.
• Actionable Insight: Investors should monitor the development of ZK-PoW as it could create a new, sustainable economic model for ZK hardware accelerators by providing a baseline demand through block rewards.

"Dumbnet": Bootstrapping Nockchain's Proving Capacity

• The initial version of Nockchain, "Dumbnet," is a minimal viable product focused on establishing a proof-of-work competition for ZK-PoW.
• The primary goal is to build up worldwide capacity for proving Nock computations.
• Miners initially prove "puzzle" computations, competing for block rewards. This subsidizes the growth of proving capacity.
• The vision is that this network of provers can then be leveraged for application-specific proofs. If an application developer is willing to pay more for a proof than a miner would earn from the block subsidy, miners can switch to serving that application.
  • Logan states, "I think that a proof of work competition is the obvious approach to to building a proof market. You start with a block subsidy which makes sustainable demand."
• Strategic Implication: The "Dumbnet" phase is critical for Nockchain. Its success in attracting miners and building a robust proving network will determine its ability to support future applications.

Application Interaction: Intents and the UTXO Model

• Nockchain uses the UTXO (Unspent Transaction Output) model, similar to Bitcoin, where balances are tracked as discrete "notes" rather than accounts. This model is inherently more parallelizable.
• A planned upgrade will allow proofs to be used as "spend conditions" on coins. This means a user can lock funds, and they can only be spent if a specific ZK proof (e.g., proof of a computation) is provided.
• This enables an "intent-based" system. Intents are user-defined desired outcomes (e.g., "I want to trade X for Y") that off-chain solvers can fulfill.
  • For example, a user could lock USDC with the condition that it's spendable upon proof of receiving another token, effectively creating an on-chain order for a swap.
• Logan suggests this allows for "micro apps" where the app is essentially a coin-locking mechanism paired with off-chain watcher scripts that find and interact with these locked coins.
• Actionable Insight: The intent-based architecture combined with UTXOs could offer a highly scalable and composable way to build decentralized applications, differing significantly from account-based smart contract platforms.

Miner Competition in Nockchain: Hardware and Optimization

• Nockchain miners compete not just on raw hardware but on optimizing for specific mathematical operations: polynomial math and algebraic hashes within a compute pipeline.
• This resembles HPC (High-Performance Computing) more than traditional crypto mining.
• The goal for miners is to produce Nock proofs as fast and efficiently (per watt) as possible.
• The UTXO model's dependency graph for each note allows for massively parallel processing of proofs, unlike single-threaded state machines in account models.
• Strategic Implication: The nature of ZK-PoW could foster a specialized hardware market (e.g., ASICs for Nock ZKVM) and attract miners with HPC expertise, potentially leading to rapid advancements in ZK proof generation.

Nockchain's Edge: ZK-Native L1 and Developer Experience

• A ZK-native L1 like Nockchain focuses on fast on-chain verification of ZK proofs related to blockchain state. The aim is to minimize the time from wanting a computation to having a verified proof on-chain.
• Nockchain is building Nockapp, a development framework in Rust for building off-chain verifiable services. This includes a Swift-like programming language that compiles to verifiable Nock compute workloads.
• The vision is for heavy computation to occur off-chain, with the L1 primarily handling high-throughput, parallel proof verification.
• Regarding user experience and latency, Logan distinguishes between final settlement (proof verified on-chain) and pre-confirmations (fast, probabilistic guarantees that a transaction will be processed). Nockchain aims for fast final settlement, while pre-confirmations can provide low-latency UX.
• Actionable Insight: Nockchain's focus on a complete ZK development stack (language, framework, ZKVM, L1) could significantly lower the barrier to entry for building ZK-powered applications.

State Growth, Light Clients, and Decentralization

• Logan critiques the current state of light clients in existing blockchains, noting that most users rely on third-party RPC (Remote Procedure Call) providers because running full nodes is complex and resource-intensive. RPC providers are servers that allow applications to interact with a blockchain network.
• Current L1s require every node to re-execute every transaction and store all historical data, which is inefficient.
• Nockchain's ZK-based approach aims for "execute once, verify by many." Only one party needs to execute a computation and generate a proof; all other nodes just verify the proof.
  • This could drastically reduce the computational and storage burden on nodes.
• This model could also improve data availability, potentially only requiring current active chain state to be readily available, with historical state proven via ZK proofs.
• Addressing centralization concerns in ZK-PoW mining (e.g., a "god-tier math guy" dominating), Logan anticipates a scenario similar to Bitcoin mining, where specialized ASICs (Application-Specific Integrated Circuits) for Nock ZKVM emerge. ASICs are custom chips designed for a specific task, often providing significant performance advantages.
  • He believes market incentives and competition would lead to multiple ASIC manufacturers, strengthening the network over time.
• Strategic Implication: If successful, Nockchain's model could lead to truly trustless light clients and a more decentralized network by reducing node operating costs, a significant challenge for current high-throughput L1s.

Hardware Evolution and the "Dumbnet" Launch

• Nockchain is launching "Dumbnet" with a minimal viable miner reference client to kick off the PoW optimization competition.
• Initially, the reference client does not utilize GPU, FPGA, or ASIC hardware acceleration, creating a level playing field for optimization.
• Logan anticipates that in the first 3-6 months, existing companies with ZK acceleration expertise will likely have an edge. Over time, it should become more accessible to "normal miner profiles."
• He notes significant interest from professional mining companies with in-house hardware acceleration expertise.
  • Logan: "I think we've really seen that the incentives of proof of work and having no premine and doing a fair launch and letting people fairly compete here are compelling enough that people just come out of the woodwork to compete and participate in this."
• Actionable Insight: The initial phase of "Dumbnet" will be a crucial testing ground for ZK-PoW. Observing which entities participate and how quickly optimizations (software and hardware) emerge will indicate the viability of this new mining paradigm.

The Nockapp Framework and Early Use Cases

• Nockapp is Nockchain's application framework, built in Rust, featuring a Nock interpreter and modular I/O drivers (e.g., for Ethereum RPC, Bitcoin, Nockchain).
• Nockchain itself is a Nockapp, running Nock for its internal logic, which simplifies future upgrades and proving Nockchain's own operations.
• The first major planned protocol upgrade is a Nockchain namespace. This hierarchical namespace (like a file system) will help organize and discover intents on the chain.
  • For example, users looking for inference jobs could look under an "inference" namespace.
• Logan believes namespaces are intrinsically appealing ("name sniping") and can serve as a useful way to index different types of intents, providing an early "fun game" and utility for the chain.
  • This namespace wouldn't just be for vanity addresses but for functional routing and organization of on-chain activities.
• Strategic Implication: The Nockchain namespace could be a foundational piece for building a discoverable and organized ecosystem of "micro apps" and services, fostering early user engagement.

Nockchain and the AI Ecosystem

• Logan confirmed discussions with a decentralized AI training company about using the Nockchain namespace and intent system to organize compute jobs.
• He is bullish on the intersection of verifiable computation and DePIN (Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks), envisioning an "age of computational commodities."
  • Verifiable computation allows packaging algorithms or services into tradable "computational commodity offerings" priced relative to energy.
• Different algorithms (e.g., simple hashing vs. complex AI model training) have different HPC pipeline requirements. Verifiable computation could make it easier to package and trade these diverse computational tasks.
• Actionable Insight for AI Researchers/Investors: Nockchain's infrastructure for verifiable compute and its intent-based system could offer a novel platform for coordinating decentralized AI training/inference, potentially addressing issues of privacy and secure model execution. The "computational commodities" concept warrants close attention.

Addressing Challenges: Building a Circular Economy

• Logan identifies the biggest short-term challenge as "building up the initial circular economy of chain," meaning giving users and miners productive and engaging things to do with Nock tokens.
• He views early blockchains as "video games," with Nockchain's mining competition being the first game. Subsequent "games" like name sniping are needed.
• The goal is to create unique capabilities that leverage Nockchain's strengths, leading to a self-sustaining economy where the market takes over.
• The Nock token has a fixed supply (2³² coins) with no premine; 100% goes to miners.
• Initial token utility is buying blockspace. Future utility includes buying data availability and participating in the namespace (e.g., locking coins to claim a name or create a mini-market for specific intent types).
  • Logan envisions a "creator economy around these little like microscripts for intents," where developers can earn fees by creating and popularizing useful intent patterns within the namespace.
• Strategic Implication: The success of Nockchain will heavily depend on fostering a vibrant developer community that creates these "micro apps" and "games," driving demand for the Nock token and blockspace.

Launch Details and Logan's "Aha" Moment

• Nockchain's "Dumbnet" was planned to launch around May 21st. Users can get involved via nockchain.org by signing up for the newsletter and downloading the miner.
• Logan's biggest "aha" moment was early research with a PhD mathematician, Brian, where they figured out how to represent Nock's binary trees as polynomial equations and perform operations like concatenation via polynomial exponentiation.
  • Logan: "that moment was when we were like, 'Wait a second.' Like we're we're cooking here. Like that's crazy that you can do that."

Reflective and Strategic Conclusion

Nockchain's ZK-PoW L1 introduces a novel paradigm for useful compute, aiming to bootstrap a decentralized hardware network. Crypto AI investors and researchers should monitor miner adoption, hardware/software optimization progress, and the emergence of early applications, particularly those leveraging verifiable computation for AI or DePIN use cases.