Nexus completed a $25 million Series A financing round in June.
Written by: KarenZ, Foresight News
This week, the supercomputer project Nexus launched a new testnet. Nexus founder and CEO Daniel Marin stated that just two hours after the new testnet was released, it attracted active participation from 10,000 users.
So, what exactly is the Nexus project? What are its operational mechanisms and ways to participate?
What is Nexus?
Nexus is inspired by large projects such as SETI@home developed by the University of California, Berkeley (which utilizes globally networked computers to search for extraterrestrial civilization) and Stanford University's Folding@home (a distributed computing project aimed at helping scientists develop new therapies for various diseases through simulating protein dynamics), envisioning the construction of an internet based on verifiable computation that connects computing devices scattered around the world (such as large GPU farms, computers, mobile phones, etc.) to form a supercomputer.
Additionally, by utilizing Nexus zkVM, Nexus connects computing supply with proof demand, allowing anyone to connect their device to the network, not only to participate in computations but also to receive corresponding rewards.
The founder and CEO of Nexus, Daniel Marin, graduated from Stanford University with a degree in Computer Science and has won awards twice in the International Physics Olympiad. The Chief Scientist Jens Groth is the inventor of paired zkSNARKs and has served as Research Director at DFINITY and as a professor of cryptography at University College London.
Nexus's engineering and research teams also comprise many experts with rich experience in the fields of cryptography and computer science. In addition, the advisors listed on the Nexus official website include 8 members, including Yevgeniy Dodis (Director of the Cryptography Department at NYU), Chelsea Komlo (Chief Scientist at Zcash), Zhenfei Zhang (Ethereum Cryptographer), Giuseppe Persiano (Cryptographer at Google), Daniel Vogel (Co-founder and CEO of Bitso), Gengmo Qi (Partner at Dragonfly), among others.
In terms of financing, Nexus Labs completed a $25 million Series A financing round in June 2024, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and Pantera Capital, with participation from Dragonfly Capital, Faction Ventures, and Blockchain Builders Fund.
How does Nexus operate?
As mentioned earlier, as a large-scale parallel proof network, Nexus Network tightly connects computing devices globally to form a supercomputer together. The Nexus zkVM serves as the core of this network, capable of proving any computation. zkVM is a virtual machine that uses zero-knowledge encryption technology to determine whether a computation has been correctly executed, without accessing any private or personal information.
According to the official description, Nexus zkVM is a modular, scalable, open-source, highly parallel, prover-optimized, contributor-friendly zkVM, written in Rust, focusing on performance and security. The core components of Nexus zkVM include: Nexus Prover, Nexus Virtual Machine (NVM), and the Nexus proof compression mechanism (recursive SNARK proof compression sequence). Since Nexus zkVM is designed to support a large amount of parallel computation, it greatly enhances the proof generation speed.
Specifically, the Nexus Network operates by arranging a group of prover clients, each of which can access the Nexus zkVM. Each connected prover is assigned a work unit, which is the program to be proven. The prover clients continuously report progress to Nexus throughout the proof process and wait for new task assignments after completing the proof.
Is Nexus safe?
In terms of security, according to the Nexus FAQ document, the Nexus network program cannot access files on the user's computer and network. The proof environment, the program to be proven, and the program inputs always communicate through an encrypted secure network connection. Additionally, the proof uses a virtual machine to prevent programs from directly accessing your files, devices, peripherals, etc. When communicating with the Nexus network, the web version of the prover executes the virtual machine in a sandboxed browser environment that cannot access other applications, files, or data on the system.
What information does Nexus collect? According to the Nexus terms of service and data privacy page, in addition to the email address connected to the user's account, Nexus may collect and track usage of the user's machine, geographical location, bandwidth, clock speed, hash rate, throughput, and/or other measurement data (collectively referred to as telemetry data).
How to participate?
The new Nexus testnet has added point and account features. This means that current contributors can compete for ranking on the leaderboard. The current testnet lasts until December 14 at 01:00.
Currently, users can participate in the Nexus Network in two ways: one is to directly contribute computing resources through the web interface (supported on both computer and mobile); the other is to provide computing resources to the network through the command line tool Nexus Network CLI. Connecting to the network using the CLI can achieve better performance and offers the opportunity to submit one's programs for others to prove.
1. Contributing computing resources directly through the web interface does not require any technical knowledge. The specific steps are:
1. Visit beta.nexus.xyz;
2. Click 'Connect' to connect;
3. Enter your email to connect ProverID and create a Nexus account (email confirmation is required, but the author has not yet received a confirmation email).
Alternatively, you can add an email in the Profile at the bottom left corner to track NEXUS points here. Users can also connect multiple devices to one email.
But please note: If you close the web page, points will not be accumulated. Additionally, after clearing the cache, a new ProverID will be generated, and users will not be able to access previous points. Furthermore, the ProverID shown here is not fully displayed, only the first few digits or letters. If you want to view the complete ProverID, you can check the localId field in developer mode.
2. Provide computing resources to the network through the Nexus Network CLI. Nexus states that using the CLI to connect to the network can achieve better performance and allows users to submit their programs for others to prove.
The operating systems supported are Linux, macOS, and Windows. Users can use VPS servers for running. The specific process can be referenced in the official documentation.