PANews reported on April 3rd that according to Cointelegraph, the Big Four accounting firm Ernst & Young (EY) announced that it would upgrade its enterprise-level Layer2 blockchain Nightfall to a zero-knowledge proof (ZK-Rollup) architecture. The new version "Nightfall_4" was released on April 2nd. The main improvements include: achieving near-instant transaction confirmation, simplifying the network architecture, and improving ease of use. Paul Brody, EY's global blockchain leader, said that with the lifting of US sanctions on the mixer Tornado Cash, corporate customers' acceptance of privacy technology has increased significantly. Nightfall adopts a permissioned design, requiring users to complete identity verification, and avoiding anonymous abuse from a mechanism perspective.

Currently, EY is developing a supporting tool, Starlight, to convert smart contract code into a version that supports zero-knowledge proof. The team plans to complete the deployment of Nightfall_4 first, and then start developing the fifth-generation version.