The decentralized perpetual contract protocol Lighter announced that its average block proof time has decreased from about 5.3 minutes to about 1 minute over the past month. This progress was achieved through two independent optimizations launched on July 23 and August 23. Lighter can now complete block verification faster, thereby increasing processing capacity, reducing infrastructure costs, and creating space for further expansion.

The first optimization is the Heavy/Light decomposition. This solution splits the transaction circuit into light circuits and heavy circuits, allowing simple quote updates, which account for the vast majority of transactions, to only pay for light constraints, thus halving the proof time. The second optimization comes from the Prover backend optimization brought about by the proof competition held in collaboration with Eigen Labs, which again halves the proof time under the same circuit conditions. The first batch of optimizations went live on August 23, with more batches still in progress. Additionally, on August 10, all Schnorr signature verifications were incorporated into a single Plonky3 proof for each block, resulting in approximately a 20% improvement.

The above optimizations are orthogonal and their effects are cumulative. The remaining competition optimizations are expected to bring about an additional 2x improvement, potentially reaching a total of about 10x compared to mid-July. Currently, Lighter’s sustained processing capacity has exceeded historical peak loads, and the finality limit for withdrawals has been reduced from about 21-22 minutes to about 16-17 minutes, maintaining stability during peak traffic periods.