Bonsol

Bonsol is an open-source, Solana-native verifiable computation framework — often called a ZK co-processor — that enables developers to execute arbitrarily complex logic off-chain and cryptographically prove the results on-chain. By delegating heavy computation to a decentralized prover network and verifying the output via zero-knowledge proofs, Bonsol lets any Solana program consume computation that would otherwise be prohibitively expensive or impossible to run directly within the Solana virtual machine.

How It Works

The core pipeline follows six steps. First, developers write ZK programs using the RISC Zero toolchain, which exposes a RISC-V virtual machine (zkVM) that can execute arbitrary Rust or C code and produce proofs of correct execution. Those programs are registered on-chain with the Bonsol system. When an application needs a computation, it submits an execution request specifying the ZK program to run, the inputs, a time window, and a tip.

Relay operators — independent nodes competing to win execution jobs — stake collateral to claim requests and run the requested ZK program. RISC Zero's prover generates a STARK proof of roughly 200 kilobytes. Because on-chain verification of a raw STARK at that size would exceed Solana's compute limits, Bonsol performs a critical transformation: it wraps the STARK in a Groth16 SNARK of just 256 bytes using a Circom circuit. The final Groth16 proof is then submitted to Solana, where it is verified natively using fewer than 200,000 compute units. Verification results are delivered to the calling program via a callback, completing the composable execution loop.

To prevent relay operators from substituting different inputs than those specified by the requester, Bonsol commits input data into the ZK program itself by hashing it and verifying the hash on-chain. This input commitment scheme ensures that a proof is only accepted if it was computed over exactly the inputs the user intended.

Technical Stack

Bonsol is built on RISC Zero, the most widely adopted zkVM in the Ethereum and Solana ecosystems. The STARK-to-SNARK conversion — one of the protocol's most technically demanding components — uses Circom to generate a Groth16 circuit that wraps the RISC Zero STARK verifier. The project's engineering blog documents the non-trivial obstacles encountered in this process: the raw Circom circuit compiles to roughly 1.5 million lines of C++, which required bespoke solutions for portability across architectures and stack-depth constraints during graph compilation.

For serialization, Bonsol adopts Flatbuffers as a single cross-platform serialization layer, enabling auto-generated SDKs for multiple languages from a single schema definition.

On-chain, Bonsol integrates natively with Anchor, Solana's dominant smart contract framework. Developers interact through a command-line interface, language SDKs, and Anchor CPI bindings, so adding verifiable computation to an existing Solana program is an incremental change rather than a full rewrite.

Key Products and Features

ZK Program Tooling — A developer-facing SDK and CLI for authoring, testing, and deploying RISC Zero zkVM programs to the Bonsol network.

Prover Network — Bonsol operates the first live prover network on Solana. Relay operators compete for execution requests, claim them by staking collateral, and earn tips upon successful proof delivery.

Private Input Support — Bonsol supports computation over private data by routing encrypted inputs through a private input server. The current centralized server is earmarked for replacement by an MPC threshold decryption scheme in a future upgrade.

Bonsolace (planned) — A simpler proving path for developers who want to generate proofs on their own infrastructure rather than relying on the shared relay network, targeting high-value or highly sensitive private computation scenarios.

Use Cases

The Anagram team identified two concrete use cases in their public technical writing. The first is a hidden-pool raffle: a DeFi protocol keeps the composition of a token pool private until users purchase access, with ZK proofs attesting to the integrity of random selection and pool balances throughout. The second is reusable ZK primitives: a developer deploys a ZK program over a large dataset with a fixed set of possible inputs; other dApps consume that program's output on-chain and pay usage tips, creating a marketplace for verifiable computation. Broader target verticals include DeFi, gaming, and AI inference verification.

In October 2025, BTQ Technologies demonstrated an application that illustrates Bonsol's practical ceiling: the first on-chain verification of an ML-DSA signature (NIST FIPS 204, a post-quantum cryptography standard) on Solana. The heavy PQC verification computation was offloaded to Bonsol's prover network; the resulting Groth16 SNARK was verified on-chain within Solana's per-transaction compute budget and at sub-second finality.

Tokens and Assets

Bonsol has no publicly announced native token. The protocol's economic model operates through execution tips paid by requesters to relay operators. No token sale, airdrop, or governance token has been disclosed as of mid-2026.

Team and Background

Bonsol was created by Anagram, a crypto holding and product company that incubates Solana-native protocols alongside Glider.fi, Swig, and Breeze. Hunter Hsiao is identified as co-founder of Bonsol; Joe Eagan is co-founder of Anagram and a founding member of the Bonsol Collective. The project is organized as the Bonsol Collective, encompassing node operators, ecosystem builders, and applications with ZK integrations. The codebase is open-source under the bonsol-collective/bonsol GitHub organization.

Security and Audit Status

No independent security audit of the Bonsol on-chain programs has been publicly disclosed. The protocol's cryptographic security inherits from RISC Zero's STARK proof system, which is transparent (no trusted setup) and post-quantum resistant by construction. The Groth16 wrapping layer does require a one-time universal trusted setup, which Bonsol inherits from the RISC Zero Groth16 ceremony. Developers should treat the protocol as in active development; the public beta status signals that smart contract risk has not been independently validated by a third-party auditor.

Solana Ecosystem Fit

Bonsol targets a gap that has become increasingly relevant as Solana matures: the need to verify computations that are simply too expensive to run inside the SVM. Solana's native Groth16 precompile — introduced in the Solana 1.18 runtime — makes efficient SNARK verification possible at scale, and Bonsol is built specifically to exploit that capability. By providing a ready-made prover network, developer tooling, and Anchor integration, Bonsol reduces the barrier to bringing verifiable off-chain computation into any Solana application, from high-frequency DeFi protocols to privacy-preserving data marketplaces.