PANews reported on April 3rd that according to Cointelegraph, Ernst & Young (EY) announced an upgrade of its enterprise-level Layer 2 blockchain Nightfall to a zero-knowledge proof (ZK-Rollup) architecture. The new version "Nightfall_4" was released on April 2nd, with main improvements including: achieving near-instant transaction confirmation, simplifying network architecture, and enhancing usability. Paul Brody, EY's global blockchain leader, stated that with the lifting of sanctions on Tornado Cash mixer, enterprise customers' acceptance of privacy technology has significantly improved. Nightfall adopts a permissioned design, requiring user identity verification to mechanically prevent anonymous misuse.

Currently, EY is developing a complementary tool called Starlight, which is used to convert smart contract code into versions supporting zero-knowledge proofs. The team plans to first complete the deployment of Nightfall_4, and then focus on developing the fifth-generation version.