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Writing formal specifications has always been the bottleneck in formal verification. Today we're launching AutoProver, an agentic formal verification system that reads your code, generates specifications, and verifies them. 🧵

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Certora

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42,796 views • 1 month ago •via X (Twitter)

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UPDATE HOSKINSON REVEALS CARDANO'S SECRET WEAPON😱😱😱 Charles Hoskinson says Cardano's biggest edge isn't just its code, it's a decade of formal specifications. Strong specifications make it possible to build a full node in just weeks, adding that other blockchain ecosystems are still far behind in this area. "We spent 10 years getting good at writing specifications, everybody else is massively behind us."
0:31

UPDATE HOSKINSON REVEALS CARDANO'S SECRET WEAPON😱😱😱 Charles Hoskinson says Cardano's biggest edge isn't just its code, it's a decade of formal specifications. Strong specifications make it possible to build a full node in just weeks, adding that other blockchain ecosystems are still far behind in this area. "We spent 10 years getting good at writing specifications, everybody else is massively behind us."

Mintern

11,377 views • 17 days ago

We're launching Niteshift – the full-stack cloud for coding agents Verification is the new bottleneck. Software teams can now define their dev environment and verification tools once. Then run any frontier agent in the cloud: Claude Code, Codex, or OpenCode
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We're launching Niteshift – the full-stack cloud for coding agents Verification is the new bottleneck. Software teams can now define their dev environment and verification tools once. Then run any frontier agent in the cloud: Claude Code, Codex, or OpenCode

Sajid Mehmood

91,334 views • 2 months ago

How do you actually formally verify the code underpinning Ethereum's future? In this episode (the finale of the lean Ethereum miniseries), Nico sits down with Alex Hicks (Alexander Hicks), lead of Protocol Snarkification at the Ethereum Foundation, to break down formal verification from first principles. They cover: – What formal verification actually is and the trust boundaries between proof assistants, SMT solvers, and kernels – The full verification stack for RISC-V ZKVMs: from SAIL specs to constraint extraction to soundness proofs – Why writing constraints directly in Lean makes proofs 10–100x more ergonomic – How AI is now proving hard theorems in hours for $200 — and what that unlocks for the whole pipeline They also explore the boundaries problem, why specs can have bugs too, and the end goal of a full Lean stack that bypasses Rust and LLVM entirely. Listen to the full episode ------------------------------------------------------------ TIMECODES: 09:16 – What is formal verification? Proof assistants vs SMT solvers 18:33 – Formal verification of code: specs, semantics, and trust boundaries 29:30 – Formally verifying the Lean Ethereum stack: RISC-V ZKVMs in focus 33:02 – Extracting ZKVM constraints into Lean and proving soundness 36:35 – Writing constraints directly in Lean: 10–100x better proof ergonomics 44:02 – Proving Polishchuk–Spielman in 8 hours for $200 with AI 51:01 – The end goal: a full Lean stack bypassing Rust and LLVM
56:07

How do you actually formally verify the code underpinning Ethereum's future? In this episode (the finale of the lean Ethereum miniseries), Nico sits down with Alex Hicks (Alexander Hicks), lead of Protocol Snarkification at the Ethereum Foundation, to break down formal verification from first principles. They cover: – What formal verification actually is and the trust boundaries between proof assistants, SMT solvers, and kernels – The full verification stack for RISC-V ZKVMs: from SAIL specs to constraint extraction to soundness proofs – Why writing constraints directly in Lean makes proofs 10–100x more ergonomic – How AI is now proving hard theorems in hours for $200 — and what that unlocks for the whole pipeline They also explore the boundaries problem, why specs can have bugs too, and the end goal of a full Lean stack that bypasses Rust and LLVM entirely. Listen to the full episode ------------------------------------------------------------ TIMECODES: 09:16 – What is formal verification? Proof assistants vs SMT solvers 18:33 – Formal verification of code: specs, semantics, and trust boundaries 29:30 – Formally verifying the Lean Ethereum stack: RISC-V ZKVMs in focus 33:02 – Extracting ZKVM constraints into Lean and proving soundness 36:35 – Writing constraints directly in Lean: 10–100x better proof ergonomics 44:02 – Proving Polishchuk–Spielman in 8 hours for $200 with AI 51:01 – The end goal: a full Lean stack bypassing Rust and LLVM

Zero Knowledge Podcast

15,143 views • 4 months ago

You can’t call a product secure without a way to measure it. NEAR AI’s George Zeng on trusting agents that hold credentials and move value: formal verification for what the code does, adversarial benchmarks for how it holds up against attackers that constantly adapt.
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You can’t call a product secure without a way to measure it. NEAR AI’s George Zeng on trusting agents that hold credentials and move value: formal verification for what the code does, adversarial benchmarks for how it holds up against attackers that constantly adapt.

NEAR Protocol

126,521 views • 29 days ago

There’s a popular theory that AI will finally make formal verification mainstream because mathematical proof of correctness will be needed when machines write most or all of the code. But will this happen? Hillel Wayne is one of the best people to answer. Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 04:32 The Crossover Project 11:37 What software engineering does better 15:30 What traditional engineering does better 18:17 Formal methods 29:32 TLA+: what it is and demo 36:58 TLA+ at Amazon 38:10 Ways distributed systems break 41:03 Formal methods and systems thinking 46:20 The value of learning math 50:23 What TLA+ is good for and isn’t 52:50 Alloy: a declarative language for software modeling 58:53 Other formal methods tools 1:01:24 Property-based testing 1:05:31 AI and the need for formal verification 1:12:29 Logic for programmers 1:14:35 Hillel’s 2025 prediction on AI’s impact 1:21:30 Book recommendation Brought to you by: • Antithesis – verify your system’s correctness without human review or traditional integration tests – and avoid bugs or outages. • turbopuffer – a vector and full-text search engine built on object storage. It’s fast, cheap, and extremely scalable. • WorkOS – everything you need to make your app enterprise ready. Two things I found especially interesting, talking with Hillel: 1. Amazon used TLA+ to find a bug almost impossible to locate without formal methods. In the paper How AWS uses formal methods, the AWS team shared that they’d found a complicated bug for which the shortest error trace to exhibit was 35 steps (!!). The bug passed unnoticed through extensive design review, code reviews, and testing. AWS concluded they wouldn’t have uncovered it if they’d stuck to conventional testing approaches. 2. Why not use formal verification for everything, then? It’s because specs in the real world are a nightmare to write. Even a simple problem like “find the file in a directory that has the most lines” gets complicated when modeled with formal methods. We would have to answer questions like: ‘do we look at ASCII or UTF-8 new line characters, what about unreadable files, and Symlinks?’ Without formal methods, we can write a simple verification that is right in 99%+ of cases. Formal methods require a lot of extra effort for the less than 1% of exotic use cases!
1:24:52

There’s a popular theory that AI will finally make formal verification mainstream because mathematical proof of correctness will be needed when machines write most or all of the code. But will this happen? Hillel Wayne is one of the best people to answer. Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 04:32 The Crossover Project 11:37 What software engineering does better 15:30 What traditional engineering does better 18:17 Formal methods 29:32 TLA+: what it is and demo 36:58 TLA+ at Amazon 38:10 Ways distributed systems break 41:03 Formal methods and systems thinking 46:20 The value of learning math 50:23 What TLA+ is good for and isn’t 52:50 Alloy: a declarative language for software modeling 58:53 Other formal methods tools 1:01:24 Property-based testing 1:05:31 AI and the need for formal verification 1:12:29 Logic for programmers 1:14:35 Hillel’s 2025 prediction on AI’s impact 1:21:30 Book recommendation Brought to you by: • Antithesis – verify your system’s correctness without human review or traditional integration tests – and avoid bugs or outages. • turbopuffer – a vector and full-text search engine built on object storage. It’s fast, cheap, and extremely scalable. • WorkOS – everything you need to make your app enterprise ready. Two things I found especially interesting, talking with Hillel: 1. Amazon used TLA+ to find a bug almost impossible to locate without formal methods. In the paper How AWS uses formal methods, the AWS team shared that they’d found a complicated bug for which the shortest error trace to exhibit was 35 steps (!!). The bug passed unnoticed through extensive design review, code reviews, and testing. AWS concluded they wouldn’t have uncovered it if they’d stuck to conventional testing approaches. 2. Why not use formal verification for everything, then? It’s because specs in the real world are a nightmare to write. Even a simple problem like “find the file in a directory that has the most lines” gets complicated when modeled with formal methods. We would have to answer questions like: ‘do we look at ASCII or UTF-8 new line characters, what about unreadable files, and Symlinks?’ Without formal methods, we can write a simple verification that is right in 99%+ of cases. Formal methods require a lot of extra effort for the less than 1% of exotic use cases!

Gergely Orosz

34,363 views • 22 days ago

FormaL kept trolling Scump after Renegade aired Scump's advice 😭😭 Scump : "it went really well besides getting aired" FormaL : "Will you tell your girl that you were just tryna help?" Scump : "Dude no, we're laying in bed and she's like 'you've been real quiet tonight'" 😭😭
1:08

FormaL kept trolling Scump after Renegade aired Scump's advice 😭😭 Scump : "it went really well besides getting aired" FormaL : "Will you tell your girl that you were just tryna help?" Scump : "Dude no, we're laying in bed and she's like 'you've been real quiet tonight'" 😭😭

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In blockchain governance, undetected bugs can pose significant risks. Our Formal Verification of TON's blockchain contracts had revealed the "Missing Stake Bug," which could have caused loss of staked funds or compromised network security, this issue has since been addressed proactively by the team.
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In blockchain governance, undetected bugs can pose significant risks. Our Formal Verification of TON's blockchain contracts had revealed the "Missing Stake Bug," which could have caused loss of staked funds or compromised network security, this issue has since been addressed proactively by the team.

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Vucic critic Stefan Stamenkovic was beaten and threatened by a Serb during an Orthodox gathering in Shtërpcë, Kosovo. Kosovo Police have confirmed that a formal complaint has been filed.
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Vucic critic Stefan Stamenkovic was beaten and threatened by a Serb during an Orthodox gathering in Shtërpcë, Kosovo. Kosovo Police have confirmed that a formal complaint has been filed.

Admirim

11,841 views • 5 months ago

Xavier Leroy (creator of OCaml) is an expert in compilers, formal verification of software and functional programming. This interview should be an approachable resource if you're curious about formal verification of software since I was learning that on the fly during it. In this episode: • OCaml compared with Rust and JavaScript • What is formal verification and how does it work • How languages call each other across boundaries • How to address "almost-correct" LLM code • How type inference works in programming languages Where to watch: • YouTube - • Spotify - • Apple Podcasts - • Transcript - Thank you to the sponsor of this episode for supporting my work: • WorkOS: makes your app Enterprise Ready with easy to use APIs to add SSO, SCIM, RBAC, and more in just a few lines of code, check them out at Chapters: 00:00 - Intro 00:43 - What sets OCaml apart 04:39 - OCaml vs Rust 07:57 - Why is manual memory management more performant 11:21 - Javascript vs OCaml 14:00 - Famous Rob Pike quote 16:05 - Type inference and how it works 22:12 - What is formal verification and how does it work 40:07 - What made multicore support difficult for OCaml 50:17 - How programming languages interface and call each other 57:41 - The danger of almost-correct LLM code 01:05:39 - How LLMs will change programming languages 01:10:26 - Industry vs academia 01:15:05 - Most interesting unsolved problems 01:18:30 - Top book recommendations for engineers 01:21:17 - Advice for his younger self 01:23:31 - Outro
1:24:27

Xavier Leroy (creator of OCaml) is an expert in compilers, formal verification of software and functional programming. This interview should be an approachable resource if you're curious about formal verification of software since I was learning that on the fly during it. In this episode: • OCaml compared with Rust and JavaScript • What is formal verification and how does it work • How languages call each other across boundaries • How to address "almost-correct" LLM code • How type inference works in programming languages Where to watch: • YouTube - • Spotify - • Apple Podcasts - • Transcript - Thank you to the sponsor of this episode for supporting my work: • WorkOS: makes your app Enterprise Ready with easy to use APIs to add SSO, SCIM, RBAC, and more in just a few lines of code, check them out at Chapters: 00:00 - Intro 00:43 - What sets OCaml apart 04:39 - OCaml vs Rust 07:57 - Why is manual memory management more performant 11:21 - Javascript vs OCaml 14:00 - Famous Rob Pike quote 16:05 - Type inference and how it works 22:12 - What is formal verification and how does it work 40:07 - What made multicore support difficult for OCaml 50:17 - How programming languages interface and call each other 57:41 - The danger of almost-correct LLM code 01:05:39 - How LLMs will change programming languages 01:10:26 - Industry vs academia 01:15:05 - Most interesting unsolved problems 01:18:30 - Top book recommendations for engineers 01:21:17 - Advice for his younger self 01:23:31 - Outro

Ryan Peterman

23,942 views • 1 month ago

“The level of prosperity that has been achieved in formal colonial powers is grounded in the robbery of Africa. Built on the grief and suffering of African people” — Putin 🇷🇺
0:59

“The level of prosperity that has been achieved in formal colonial powers is grounded in the robbery of Africa. Built on the grief and suffering of African people” — Putin 🇷🇺

Rev Laskaris

71,767 views • 3 years ago

‘The level of prosperity that has been achieved in formal colonial powers is grounded in the robbery of Africa. Built on the grief and suffering of African people’ -Russian President Vladimir Putin
0:59

‘The level of prosperity that has been achieved in formal colonial powers is grounded in the robbery of Africa. Built on the grief and suffering of African people’ -Russian President Vladimir Putin

Going Underground

13,195 views • 1 month ago

President Trump said an agreement with Iran has been signed and that the text of the deal would be released sometime after a formal signing on Friday, adding that the Strait of Hormuz would also be fully open
1:19

President Trump said an agreement with Iran has been signed and that the text of the deal would be released sometime after a formal signing on Friday, adding that the Strait of Hormuz would also be fully open

Reuters

94,284 views • 2 months ago

Today we’re launching a pre-season update that introduces new verification checks and changes to Premium Match and the reporting system. Read our blog to understand how they impact your experience ahead of the Season 7 launch on 19 November:
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Today we’re launching a pre-season update that introduces new verification checks and changes to Premium Match and the reporting system. Read our blog to understand how they impact your experience ahead of the Season 7 launch on 19 November:

FACEIT CS2

405,298 views • 9 months ago

“Math is code. And code is math.” Carina Hong CEO Axiom on why that idea matters for AI: “For centuries, mathematicians reasoned in natural language. But because of the Curry–Howard correspondence, a proof can also be a program.” “You can translate natural-language math into formal code using systems like Lean. Lean is both a theorem-proving language and a programming language.” “That means you can generate solutions as code and then formally verify them. You can even use the same system to verify programs themselves.” “This creates a flywheel of generation and verification, where AI can both write solutions and prove that they’re correct.”
2:25

“Math is code. And code is math.” Carina Hong CEO Axiom on why that idea matters for AI: “For centuries, mathematicians reasoned in natural language. But because of the Curry–Howard correspondence, a proof can also be a program.” “You can translate natural-language math into formal code using systems like Lean. Lean is both a theorem-proving language and a programming language.” “That means you can generate solutions as code and then formally verify them. You can even use the same system to verify programs themselves.” “This creates a flywheel of generation and verification, where AI can both write solutions and prove that they’re correct.”

Forward Future

24,729 views • 6 months ago

Financial inclusion has been the foundation of India's social transformation. Hon'ble PM Shri Narendra Modi brought crores of unbanked citizens into the formal banking system through PM Jan Dhan Yojana and enabled collateral-free credit backed by a sovereign guarantee. Our Digital Infrastructure further empowered these citizens to become entrepreneurs, build creditworthiness and participate in the formal economy. - Smt Nirmala Sitharaman at the Rencontres Économiques d’Aix-en-Provence
3:38

Financial inclusion has been the foundation of India's social transformation. Hon'ble PM Shri Narendra Modi brought crores of unbanked citizens into the formal banking system through PM Jan Dhan Yojana and enabled collateral-free credit backed by a sovereign guarantee. Our Digital Infrastructure further empowered these citizens to become entrepreneurs, build creditworthiness and participate in the formal economy. - Smt Nirmala Sitharaman at the Rencontres Économiques d’Aix-en-Provence

Nirmala Sitharaman Office

12,972 views • 1 month ago

We're thrilled to highlight that Space and Time's Blitzar has been integrated into Microsoft Nova. The integration lays the groundwork for GPU acceleration in Nova and enables fast onchain verification for ZK protocols everywhere.
0:32

We're thrilled to highlight that Space and Time's Blitzar has been integrated into Microsoft Nova. The integration lays the groundwork for GPU acceleration in Nova and enables fast onchain verification for ZK protocols everywhere.

Space and Time

27,270 views • 1 year ago

New Federal Law to Require Age Verification on All Operating Systems H.R. 8250 ("To require operating system providers to verity the age of any user of an operating system, and for other purposes.") has been introduced in the U.S. Congress.
27:42

New Federal Law to Require Age Verification on All Operating Systems H.R. 8250 ("To require operating system providers to verity the age of any user of an operating system, and for other purposes.") has been introduced in the U.S. Congress.

The Lunduke Journal

60,110 views • 4 months ago

We've built a massive verification bottleneck: • 72% of developers use AI to generate code every day • 96% of them don't fully trust it Writing code is now free. All the work now is verifying that the code does what it's supposed to. According to a new State of Code Survey, almost half of the respondents believe the number one skill that will matter most in the coming years is "reviewing and validating AI-generated code for quality and security". Not prompt engineering or vibe-coding, but checking AI's work.
3:44

We've built a massive verification bottleneck: • 72% of developers use AI to generate code every day • 96% of them don't fully trust it Writing code is now free. All the work now is verifying that the code does what it's supposed to. According to a new State of Code Survey, almost half of the respondents believe the number one skill that will matter most in the coming years is "reviewing and validating AI-generated code for quality and security". Not prompt engineering or vibe-coding, but checking AI's work.

Santiago

16,299 views • 7 months ago