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Architecture Overview

Axiom consists of two main technical pieces:

  • AxiomV2Core -- a cache of Ethereum block hashes starting from genesis
  • AxiomV2Query -- a smart contract which fulfills user queries by verifying against AxiomV2Core

Caching block hashes in AxiomV2Core​

The AxiomV2Core smart contract caches Ethereum block hashes from genesis in two forms.

  • First, we cache the Keccak Merkle roots of groups of 1024 consecutive block hashes. These Merkle roots are kept updated by ZK proofs which verify that hashes of block headers form a commitment chain that ends in either one of the 256 most recent blocks directly accessible to the EVM or a block hash already present in the AxiomV2Core cache.
  • Second, we store a padded Merkle Mountain Range of these Merkle roots starting from the genesis block. This Merkle Mountain Range is updated alongside updates to the Keccak Merkle roots in the first portion of the AxiomV2Core cache.

In summary, AxiomV2Core provides an efficient way for smart contracts to verify the validity of any historic block hash on Ethereum against a cache. See Caching Block Hashes for more details on how the cache is maintained or accessed.

Fulfilling queries in AxiomV2Query​

The AxiomV2Query protocol is a collection of smart contracts that fulfill user queries for computations over historic Ethereum data. Queries can be made on-chain and are fulfilled on-chain with ZK proof verification.

All computations and Ethereum data accessed within a user query are ZK proved to be valid with respect to Ethereum block hashes. The AxiomV2Query smart contract verifies this ZK proof on-chain and also verifies the block hashes against the block hashes cached in AxiomV2Core. The result is that all user queries are trustlessly verified with the same security guarantees as Ethereum itself.

Further details about our query protocol are available at Axiom Query Protocol.