Decision

The Arc source can be transplanted onto current PostFiat L1: Git had one textual conflict, the integrated tree compiles, Arc conformance passed 4/4, and the current Arc guest passed 5/5 tests on an NVIDIA H100.

That is not enough to merge it as proof-qualified code. The paid H100 run found a real evidence gap: the repository’s archived ingress witness belongs to the older v1 guest, while the current candidate contains the stricter v2 guest. PR 37 remains unmerged until a proof-ready v2 witness exists and passes the same H100 gate.

What the current candidate proved

The machine ran candidate commit fba263ef59c5de89b1b00a6d2e5e0ffb19ec670c on an NVIDIA H100 80GB HBM3 with driver 590.48.01 and compute capability 9.0.

CheckResult
Arc conformance4 passed, 0 failed
Current Arc guest tests5 passed, 0 failed
Current Arc ELF SHA-256830634e6bf67333315bda7874ed1155dfc45c7e3b1ebc5e97a1fd34f9af7f130
Current Arc vkey0x00d8e761fd2e0034388813ad8febd38beb3b271a83575a05834168450ea814c5
Archived witness under current guestRejected before proving: ARC_INGRESS_BOUNDS

The rejection is correct. The archived JSON is a v1 witness. It has an empty next_validators list and no validator_registry_proof. The v2 guest requires an authenticated validator-registry proof even when the validator set does not change. Weakening that requirement merely to make an old fixture pass would undo the security improvement.

We then attempted to recapture the same archived deposit through Arc’s public testnet RPC. The endpoint returned JSON-RPC -32601 for eth_getProof: the method is not supported. Without that state proof, the public capture path cannot construct the v2 witness required by the current guest.

Historical control replay

To separate a broken GPU environment from a missing v2 input, the same H100 checked out the frozen v1 source commit 3e2c9caa9159cd899664434f0377f05b27f31deb and replayed the archived witness under its matching guest.

MeasurementResult
SP1 GPU server6.3.1, device 0
Guest instructions2,376,633
Execute time934 ms
Proof modeGroth16
Proof bytes356
Program vkey0x00b218e0ab7d2582baacca0dfaa8a5b211f258880ee44898797e109ae6b55ee0
Public values314 bytes
Public-values SHA-256cd985257ccb45f8dd3c54c0dbdec8f63e3ab6ee14e8846485e3b5749032f074b
Archive comparisonByte-exact
Total wall time335 seconds, including compilation and the first circuit download

The newly generated proof verified locally. Its proof serialization is not treated as deterministic output; the stable comparisons are the program identity and canonical public-value bytes.

Merge consequence

This run distinguishes two claims that had been conflated:

  1. Historical replay works. The archived v1 program, witness, and public values are internally consistent and replay on an H100.
  2. Current v2 release qualification is incomplete. The repository does not contain a v2 ingress witness, and the default public Arc RPC cannot create one because it does not expose eth_getProof.

The code transplant is mechanically feasible, but the current merge remains gated. The next acceptable evidence is one of:

  • an archive-capable Arc endpoint producing the registry proof at the exact archived deposit block;
  • a new deposit plus an authenticated registry proof at its exact block; or
  • a reviewed protocol redesign that authenticates the next validator set without depending on eth_getProof.

After that input is frozen, the current v2 ELF and vkey must be rerun on H100 and its public values compared against a committed expected artifact. Only then should PR 37 be merged.

Cost and cleanup

The H100 cost approximately $0.65 at $2.2044/hour for 1,054 seconds. The provider confirmed the rental was absent after termination. No stopped or billable GPU was left behind.

Machine-readable results: /research/arc-current-main-h100-20260902/summary.json.