Polynomial Multiproofs for Scalable Data Availability Sampling in Blockchain Light Clients

Abstract

Light clients are essential for scalable blockchain systems because they verify data availability without downloading full blocks. In data availability sampling based systems, sampled cells are retrieved from a peer-to-peer network and verified against cryptographic commitments. A common deployment pattern associates each sampled cell with an independent Kate-Zaverucha-Goldberg (KZG) proof, creating substantial cumulative bandwidth, storage, and verification overhead. This paper studies polynomial multiproofs (PMP) as a mechanism for reducing these costs in blockchain light clients. We present a design in which multiple sampled cell evaluations are verified using a single aggregated proof over a shared evaluation micro-domain and describe the corresponding changes to proof generation, dissemination, retrieval, and verification in a peer-to-peer light-client stack. We instantiate and evaluate the design in Avail, a modular data availability layer for blockchains, as a case study. The results show lower proof bytes, lower verifier CPU and memory usage, and deployment-level infrastructure cost reductions of up to 45% relative to a per-cell baseline, while also clarifying the trade-offs introduced by grouped retrieval.