Glossary
Recursive Proof
A zero-knowledge proof whose circuit verifies one or more other proofs, letting an entire chain of statements be compressed into a single succinct proof.
A recursive proof is a zero-knowledge proof whose circuit itself runs a verifier for other proofs. Instead of checking many proofs on-chain, a prover folds them together: each new proof attests that the previous proof was valid, so a single final proof vouches for an arbitrarily long history.
This unlocks proof aggregation and incrementally verifiable computation. Rollups use it to batch thousands of transaction proofs into one cheap on-chain verification, and chains like Mina keep the entire blockchain provable in a few kilobytes by recursively proving each new block on top of the last.