ShadowPath Shows Verkle Trees Cost 5.7x More Proving Time Than Sparse Merkle for Credential Revocation Proofs

arXiv 2608.19937·medium signalXBlueskyLinkedInCopy link

ShadowPath moves the credential status lookup to the holder, who proves in zero-knowledge that a credential is unrevoked under a verifier-selected registry root, so the verifier learns the status result without linkable metadata. The paper contributes what the authors believe is the first evaluation of Verkle trees for credential revocation against sparse Merkle trees, testing whether shallower paths offset KZG authentication cost. Across 30 desktop trials median Groth16 proving took 371.6ms with sparse Merkle versus 2.11s with Verkle, and verification 3.70ms versus 7.55ms, so shorter authenticated paths do not translate into cheaper zero-knowledge proofs.