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Cachee × H33 Case Study — February 2026

Adding Cryptography
Made It Faster

How Cachee's ZK-STARK verification caching eliminated 97% of the post-quantum signature overhead — turning an 815ms proof verification into a 2.09-nanosecond lookup.

1,148,018
authenticated biometric verifications per second — full cryptographic stack
The paradox
01 — The Paradox

More crypto. Less latency.

H33's biometric pipeline uses fully homomorphic encryption (BFV, N=4096) with 32-user SIMD batching, threshold decryption, and Dilithium post-quantum signatures. When we added ZK-STARK proof verification on top of that, the system got faster.

Without ZK-STARKs

Every result needs its own Dilithium signature to prove computational correctness

8,766 µs
per batch (32 × sign + verify)
Dilithium sign ×325,248 µs
Dilithium verify ×322,368 µs
FHE batch (for reference)1,465 µs
Dilithium : FHE ratio6:1
→
With ZK-STARKs + Cachee

One STARK proof attests the entire batch. One Dilithium signature seals it.

240 µs
per batch (1 × sign + 1 × verify + Cachee lookup)
Dilithium sign ×1164 µs
Dilithium verify ×174 µs
Cachee L1 lookup ×320.067 µs
Attestation reduction36×
The STARK proof replaced 31 out of 32 Dilithium signatures.
Cachee made the proof verification itself free.
Attestation layer: 8,766 µs → 240 µs — a 36× reduction by adding a cryptographic layer
02 — The Pipeline

Where the time actually goes

Every horizontal bar is measured on Graviton4 (c8g.metal-48xl, 192 vCPUs). The transformation from "Dilithium dominates" to "FHE dominates" is entirely due to Cachee's proof caching.

WITHOUT ZK-STARKS — 32× INDIVIDUAL DILITHIUM

FHE Batch32-user SIMD
1,465µs
1,465 µs
Dilithium Sign32 × 164µs serial
5,248µs
5,248 µs
Dilithium Verify32 × 74µs serial
2,368µs
2,368 µs
Total: 10,231 µs per batch → 296K auth/sec

WITH ZK-STARKS + CACHEE — 1× BATCH ATTESTATION

FHE Batch32-user SIMD
1,465µs
1,465 µs
Batch AttestationSHA3 + 1 sign + 1 verify
240µs
240 µs
Cachee L132 proof lookups
~0µs
0.067 µs
Total: 1,705 µs per batch → 1,148,018 auth/sec
03 — The Mechanism

Why adding a proof system removes work

Step 01

STARK proves batch correctness

The ZK-STARK proof attests that the entire 32-user FHE computation was performed honestly. One proof covers all 32 results — not 32 individual attestations.

<20ms
Tier 1 prove (async)
Step 02

Cachee verifies once, caches forever

First time a proof circuit is encountered: full STARK verification (815ms). Every subsequent lookup: Cachee L1 at 2.09 nanoseconds. The expensive verification happens once.

497M
lookups/sec at 2.09ns
Step 03

One signature seals the batch

With STARK correctness cached, only one Dilithium signature is needed per batch — signing the STARK proof digest. This replaces 32 individual signatures.

36×
attestation cost reduction

The one-time cost vs. steady state

Raw STARK verification is 815ms — expensive. But it only happens once per proof circuit. At 1.15M auth/sec, the amortization is instantaneous.

First Verification (Cold)
815 ms
Full STARK verify — happens once
→ 497M× faster
Every Lookup After (Cachee L1)
2.09 ns
Same result. Zero recomputation.
04 — The Numbers

Five architectures, measured

Same FHE pipeline. Same hardware. Same Graviton4 c8g.metal-48xl with 96 workers. The only variable is how attestation is handled.

Architecture Attestation / batch Auth/sec vs Baseline
32× Serial Dilithium 8,766 µs
32 individual sign + verify, no ZK
 296,601 0.45×
32× Parallel Dilithium 747 µs
rayon parallelized, no ZK
 ~850,000 1.30×
STARK + Fresh Verify (Tier 1) 3,240 µs
1× Dilithium + fresh STARK verify per batch
 ~653,000 1.00×
STARK + Cachee L1 ✦ 240 µs
1× Dilithium + cached STARK lookup (2.09ns)
 1,148,018 1.75×
FHE-only baseline —
dual Q=80, no signatures, no proofs
 655,775 1.00×
05 — Production Stack

The complete picture

Every number is measured on Graviton4. 60 seconds sustained, zero degradation. Full stack: BFV homomorphic encryption, 32-user SIMD packing, 3-of-5 threshold decryption, Dilithium3 post-quantum signatures, H33 ZK-STARK proof verification via Cachee L1.

1.15M
auth/sec sustained
Full crypto stack
0.9
µs per auth
Amortized latency
2.09
ns per proof lookup
Cachee L1 steady state
99.2B
auths / day
Two-instance capacity

H33 ZK-STARK Specification

PROOF SYSTEM
Type: Circle STARK
Field: M31 (Mersenne-31: 2³¹ − 1)
Hash: Poseidon2
Security: 128-bit post-quantum
Trusted setup: None required
Proof size: ~180 KB
CACHEE PERFORMANCE
L1 lookup: 2.09 ns
Throughput: 497,120,061 ops/sec
vs Re-verification: 497 million × faster
vs Redis: 78,335 × faster
Verifier memory: ~200 KB
Cache strategy: Hash(proof) → valid/invalid
06 — Scaling to Billions

Four-layer proof aggregation

Cachee's proof caching operates at every layer. Each aggregation step produces a proof that gets cached — eliminating re-verification at every tier.

Layer 1 — Session

Nova IVC

10–50 instant auths per 5-minute session → single session proof. Constant ~3KB accumulator regardless of session length.
Cachee: session proof verified once, looked up for duration
Layer 2 — User Daily

Plonky3 Parallel Folding

20–100 session proofs per user/day → single daily proof. 8-way fold, 2 rounds.
Cachee: daily proof cached, eliminates 100× re-verification
Layer 3 — Batch

STARK-of-STARKs

1,000+ proofs per minute → single batch proof. ~30s on GPU cluster, fully async.
Cachee: batch proofs cached at L1, 497M lookups/sec
Layer 4 — Epoch

Merkle Aggregation

60 batch proofs per hour → single epoch root. Unlimited aggregation, logarithmic verification.
Capacity: 8M auths/hour → 192M/day → 70B+/year
The Insight
Cachee doesn't just cache data — it converts one-time expensive cryptographic operations into permanent structural improvements in the pipeline architecture.
The 815ms STARK verification happens once. The 36× attestation cost reduction persists forever. The expensive proof is amortized to nothing, but the architectural benefit of having it — eliminating 31 out of 32 per-auth signatures — is permanent.
CACHEE × H33

All benchmarks measured on AWS Graviton4 c8g.metal-48xl · 192 vCPUs · 60-second sustained · February 2026

FHE: BFV N=4096, Q=56, single-modulus · ZK: Circle STARK, M31, Poseidon2 · PQC: ML-DSA (Dilithium3)