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Circle STARKs (Haböck, Levit, Papini 2024)¶
Last modified: 2026-10-23
Summary¶
Adapts STARKs and FRI to work over the circle curve of a prime field p where p+1 is divisible by a large power of two, notably the Mersenne prime 2^31-1, enabling very fast native field arithmetic. It develops circle-group FFTs, a circle version of FRI, and the corresponding AIR machinery. Circle STARKs underpin StarkWare's Stwo prover and show how field choice dominates prover performance for hash-based, post-quantum proof systems.