SP1 Helios

Overview

SP1 Helios verifies the consensus of a source chain in the execution environment of a destination chain. For example, you can run an SP1 Helios light client on Polygon that verifies Ethereum Mainnet's consensus.

Deployment Instructions

Prerequisites

• Foundry
• SP1

1) Consensus RPC Setup

To run SP1 Helios, you need a Beacon Chain node for your source chain. For example, to run an Ethereum mainnet light client, you need an Ethereum mainnet beacon node.

The beacon chain node must support the RPC methods for the Altair light client protocol. As of 10/15/24, Nimbus is the only consensus client that supports these "light sync" endpoints by default.

There are a few options for setting up a consensus RPC with "light sync" endpoints:

1. Get an RPC from a provider running Nimbus nodes. Chainstack is currently the only provider we're aware of that supports this. Set up a node on Chainstack and use the consensus client endpoint for an Ethereum mainnet node.
2. Run a Nimbus eth2 beacon node. Instructions here.
3. There is a community-maintained list of Ethereum Beacon Chain light sync endpoints here. These endpoints are not guaranteed to work, and are often unreliable.

The RPC you just set up will be used as the SOURCE_CONSENSUS_RPC_URL in the next step.

2) Environment Setup

In the root directory, create a file called .env (mirroring .env.example) and set the following environment variables:

Parameter	Description
SOURCE_CHAIN_ID	Chain ID for the source chain.
SOURCE_CONSENSUS_RPC_URL	RPC URL for the source chain. See how to get this in the Consensus RPC Setup section
DEST_RPC_URL	RPC URL for the destination chain (where the light client contract will be deployed).
DEST_CHAIN_ID	Chain ID for the destination chain (where the light client contract will be deployed).
PRIVATE_KEY	Private key for the account that will be deploying the contract.
SP1_PROVER	Default: mock. network will generate real proofs using the Succinct Prover Network.
ETHERSCAN_API_KEY	API key for Etherscan verification.

Optional Parameters

Parameter	Description
GUARDIAN_ADDRESS	Defines the owner for the light client. Defaults to the account owner of PRIVATE_KEY.
SP1_PRIVATE_KEY	Required in network mode. The private key of the account that will be requesting proofs from the Succinct Prover Network. Get access here.
SP1_VERIFIER_ADDRESS	Required in network mode. The address of the verifier contract. You can find the deployed verifiers here.
LOOP_DELAY_MINS	The delay between each loop of the operator in minutes. Defaults to 5.

3) Deploy Contract

Deploy the SP1 Helios contract.

# Load environment variables
source .env

cd contracts

# Install dependencies
forge install

# Deploy contract. The forge script determines the initial genesis state based on your .env
forge script script/Deploy.s.sol --ffi --rpc-url $DEST_RPC_URL --private-key $PRIVATE_KEY --etherscan-api-key $ETHERSCAN_API_KEY --broadcast --verify

When the script completes, take note of the light client contract address printed by the script. In the example logs below, it's 0x5026D3675af919f1AeE2ceD1F0a9F4903dDB1bAA.

ratankaliani@Ratan-Mac-Pro-Succinct contracts % forge script script/Deploy.s.sol --rpc-url $DEST_RPC_URL --private-key $PRIVATE_KEY --etherscan-api-key $ETHERSCAN_API_KEY --broadcast --verify --ffi

[⠊] Compiling...
[⠃] Compiling 1 files with Solc 0.8.26
[⠊] Solc 0.8.26 finished in 807.42ms
...

== Return ==
0: address 0x5026D3675af919f1AeE2ceD1F0a9F4903dDB1bAA

...

Add the contract address to the .env file in your root directory.

Parameter	Description
CONTRACT_ADDRESS	Address of the light client contract deployed

Note: if you see the error, check that your account has sufficient funds or check that the private key is valid.

4) Run Light Client

You should now have the following environment variables set in the .env file in your root directory.

Parameter	Description
SOURCE_CHAIN_ID	Chain ID for the source chain.
SOURCE_CONSENSUS_RPC_URL	RPC URL for the source chain. See how to get this in the Consensus RPC Setup section
DEST_RPC_URL	RPC URL for the destination chain (where the light client contract will be deployed).
DEST_CHAIN_ID	Chain ID for the destination chain (where the light client contract will be deployed).
PRIVATE_KEY	Private key for the account that will be deploying the contract.
GUARDIAN_ADDRESS	Optional. Defines the owner for the light client. Defaults to the account owner of PRIVATE_KEY.
SP1_PROVER	Default: mock. network will generate real proofs using the Succinct Prover Network.
ETHERSCAN_API_KEY	API key for Etherscan verification.
CONTRACT_ADDRESS	Address of the light client contract deployed in the previous stage.

---

To run the operator, which generates proofs and keeps the light client updated with chain state, run the following command.

Note: When SP1_PROVER=mock, the operator will not generate real proofs.

RUST_LOG=info cargo run --release --bin operator

If successful, you should see logs indicating that the consensus state is being updated.

[2024-10-15T21:01:19Z INFO  operator] Starting SP1 Helios operator
[2024-10-15T21:01:20Z WARN  helios::consensus] checkpoint too old, consider using a more recent block
[2024-10-15T21:01:20Z INFO  operator] Contract is up to date. Nothing to update.
[2024-10-15T21:01:20Z INFO  operator] Sleeping for 5 minutes
...
...
[2024-10-15T21:06:35Z INFO  operator] New head: 6107648
[2024-10-15T21:06:50Z INFO  operator] Transaction hash: 0x4a0dfa2922704295ed59bf16840454858a4d17225cdf613387de7605b5a41520
[2024-10-15T21:06:50Z INFO  operator] Sleeping for 5 minutes

Congratulations 🎉, you're successfully running an SP1 Helios light client!