L1 zkEVM: The first step towards Ethereum’s ZK endgame

For those who closely follow the development of Ethereum technology, the blog post " Delivering L1 zkEVM #1: Real-time Proofs " recently released by Ethereum engineer Sophia Gold is of great significance. Although this only represents the technical conception of the Ethereum core development team and has not yet officially entered the EIP (Ethereum Improvement Proposal) process, and there is still a long way to go before it becomes an established plan for mainnet upgrades, the signal it sends cannot be underestimated.

This article clearly shows the core development blueprint of Ethereum in the future: to fully and deeply integrate Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP) technology into all levels of Layer 1 protocol, from consensus layer to execution layer. According to this technical roadmap, the first key step is to upgrade the EVM of each node to zkEVM. In this way, the node can generate the corresponding zero-knowledge proof synchronously in the process of executing transactions and running smart contracts, providing the verification node with the basis for verifying the correctness of this execution.

This is not a regular technology iteration, but an architectural revolution comparable to "The Merge". It aims to fundamentally solve the multiple challenges faced by Ethereum in terms of expansion, security and economic model. So why did Ethereum choose to "bet all" on ZK at this time? What is the deep logic behind this strategic shift? How will it reshape the L1 and even the entire L2 ecosystem we are familiar with?

Based on existing research, this article will tell you the grand narrative of Ethereum’s “ZK Finality” and analyze the motivations, actions, and far-reaching impacts behind it.

? 1. Paradigm shift from “re-execution” to “proof verification”?

The core of Ethereum’s ZK conception is to reshape the consensus verification mechanism. The recently released L1 zkEVM roadmap provides a clear technical path for this transformation.

• Current Model: Re-execution Currently, when a new block is proposed, all validator nodes in the network must independently and completely re-execute every transaction in the block to calculate and verify that the final state root is consistent with the proposer's statement. This process is resource-intensive and is the main bottleneck limiting Ethereum L1 throughput.

• Future Model: Proof Verification Under the new L1 zkEVM architecture, the builder of the block will produce a concise ZK validity proof (ZK Proof) while generating the block. After receiving the block and the proof, other validators will no longer need to re-execute the transaction, but only need to verify the cryptographic proof. Since the computational cost of "verifying ZK Proof" is several orders of magnitude lower than "re-executing transactions" , and more importantly, the time required to verify a proof has almost nothing to do with the number of transactions covered by the proof , Ethereum can significantly increase the Gas limit of the block to accommodate more transactions without significantly increasing the hardware threshold of the validator. Vitalik Buterin once mentioned that the Gas limit of L1 is expected to increase by 10 times, or even 100 times in the longer term, thereby achieving the expansion of L1 while maintaining decentralization.

In short, the future Ethereum L1 is architecturally very similar to a huge, native ZK-Rollup , making Ethereum L1 itself expected to become " the world's largest ZK application ."

Strict technical standards

The Ethereum team has set extremely strict technical standards for the implementation of L1 zkEVM, which aims to reduce latency and increase throughput while ensuring security and decentralization.

Multi-proof security model

In order to prevent unknown vulnerabilities that may exist in a single zkEVM implementation, the roadmap introduces a "Multi-Proof" security mechanism. It requires that multiple proofs of the validity of the same block must be generated by multiple zkEVMs from different teams (such as Scroll, Polygon, Kakarot, etc.). The validator's client will download and verify these proofs from different sources. Only when multiple independent proofs are verified, the block will be accepted by the consensus layer. This is essentially an extension and sublimation of Ethereum's "client diversity" concept at the proof layer. By forcing the introduction of redundancy and diversity through the protocol, it provides deep defense for L1 and enhances the robustness of the protocol.

? 2. Why must Ethereum be “fully ZK-ized”? ?

Ethereum's full embrace of zero-knowledge proof technology is a major strategic transformation based on deep thinking about its economic model, competitive environment, and future market needs.

• First of all, this is an important revision of the "L2-centric" economic model. Although the introduction of the blob mechanism by EIP-4844 successfully reduced the transaction costs of Layer 2, it also brought unexpected side effects - seriously weakening the value capture ability of Layer 1. The sharp decline in L1 transaction fee income and ETH destruction directly impacted ETH's deflationary expectations, resulting in sluggish currency prices and rising community dissatisfaction. By upgrading EVM to zkEVM, validator nodes can switch from the time-consuming "re-execution" mode to the efficient "verification" mode, which will significantly reduce L1 latency and increase throughput. In this way, Ethereum can re-attract high-value transactions that have extremely high requirements for security and immediate finality, increase L1 fee income, reactivate the destruction mechanism of EIP-1559, and achieve a rebalance in the economic relationship between L1 and L2.

• Secondly, this is an asymmetric strategy to deal with the competition of high-performance public chains. Faced with the strong performance of the new generation of high-performance L1 such as Solana and Sui in TPS, Ethereum has chosen a unique competitive path. It did not follow its competitors to pursue performance improvement by sacrificing the degree of decentralization (such as significantly increasing the hardware threshold of validators and reducing the number of validator nodes). Instead, it used ZK technology to achieve a performance leap by transforming the verification work from "expensive replay" to "cheap verification" while maintaining its core advantage of a million-level validator network . This strategy aims to consolidate Ethereum's moat in decentralization and security, while improving performance, striving to achieve both security and high performance.

• Finally, this is a forward-looking layout to meet the wave of RWA and institutional finance. RWA tokenization is generally regarded as the next trillion-level market opportunity for blockchain. With the entry of financial giants such as BlackRock and Franklin Templeton, unprecedentedly strict requirements have been put forward for the underlying public chain in terms of performance, security, privacy and compliance. Although L1s such as Solana and Sui have excellent performance, they have relatively few verification nodes and a high degree of centralization. In addition, they all have a black history of downtime, which makes it difficult to meet the needs of high-value financial activities in terms of security and stability. Although various OP Rollups in the Ethereum ecosystem (such as Base and MegaETH) have good performance and good security due to state writeback L1, their 7-day challenge period is an unacceptable risk exposure for high-value financial settlements. In contrast, the cryptographic level finality provided by ZK technology and the ability to prove compliance without leaking sensitive data (such as proving that an address has passed KYC) perfectly meet the core needs of institutional finance. If the zkEVM upgrade can improve throughput as expected , then the Ethereum ecosystem ( L1+ZK Rollup ) that natively integrates ZK technology will achieve "performance, security, and stability" and become an ideal global settlement layer to take on the RWA wave.

?️ 3. ZK Finale in Action?️

Ethereum’s ZK endgame has already shown signs, in addition to Sophia Gold’s blog post:

• As early as April 2025, Vitalik Buterin proposed a forward-looking idea: to replace the existing EVM with the more ZK-friendly RISC-V instruction set architecture. Supporters believe that compared with the inefficient performance of EVM in generating ZK circuits, RISC-V's simpler architecture can bring orders of magnitude improvement in proof efficiency. Although this proposal has caused controversy due to its subversion of the existing ecosystem, it has set a clear "North Star" for Ethereum's ZKization - clarifying the standards for the ideal zkEVM and pointing the way for optimization.

• At the Berlin workshop in June 2025, Justin Drake, a researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, explicitly announced that Ethereum is going all in on ZK for L1 expansion. This statement confirms the firm determination of the core development team.

Ethereum's ZK endgame is by no means "paper talk" . Although Optimistic Rollup is still ahead of ZK Rollup in various key indicators, the difficulties that hinder the practical application of ZK technology are being overcome one by one. The three fundamental reasons for ZK Rollup's serious lag in history are:

• The first is technical complexity and performance bottlenecks : in the past, generating ZK proofs for general EVM calculations was considered extremely difficult, slow, expensive, or even computationally infeasible.

• The second is the gap in developer experience : ORU has achieved a high degree of EVM compatibility from the beginning, while early ZKR (such as the early version of StarkNet) is not compatible with EVM, requiring developers to learn a completely new programming language, which constitutes an extremely high entry barrier.

• Finally, there is liquidity fragmentation and network effect : ORU has gathered a large number of users and liquidity by virtue of its first-mover advantage, forming a strong network effect.

However, these historical obstacles are being overcome one by one.

• In terms of proof speed, thanks to the progress of new generation proof algorithms such as PLONK and STARKs, as well as the development of hardware acceleration technologies such as GPU, FPGA and even ASIC, the time to generate ZK proofs has been greatly shortened. For example, Succinct's SP1 zkVM can prove 93% of Ethereum mainnet blocks in an average of 10.3 seconds, which is very close to the 10-second goal set by the Ethereum Foundation.

• In terms of compatibility, zkEVM has undergone an evolutionary process of gradually improving compatibility from Type 4 to Type 1. Today, projects such as Scroll, Taiko, and Polygon zkEVM have been able to achieve near-perfect EVM equivalence (reaching Type 2 or even Type 1 standards), fundamentally eliminating the gap in developer experience with ORU. Moreover, the L1 ZK-based Multi-Proof security model relies on multiple independent proof systems, and the current vigorous development of the zkEVM track has laid the foundation for the realization of this security model.

In summary, the core obstacles that historically caused ZK technology to lag behind - performance and compatibility - are being rapidly overcome. The technology is fully prepared for large-scale practical applications, but the stereotype of ZK technology being " slow, expensive, and difficult " made people reluctant to accept it. The Ethereum core team's vision of " making Ethereum the world's largest ZK application " is an endorsement of modern ZK technology, sounding the clarion call for large-scale practical use of ZK technology.

? 4. ROLLUP Ecosystem Transformation?

NATIVE ROLLUP paves the way for ZK ROLLUP

The full ZKization of Ethereum L1 will fundamentally reshape the competitive landscape of Layer 2. The most revolutionary change is the introduction of "Native Rollup" . The current ZK-Rollup requires the deployment of complex validator smart contracts containing thousands of lines of code on L1 to verify the ZK proof submitted by L2, which not only increases the difficulty of development, but also brings security risks due to the uneven level of developers. After L1 implements zkEVM, the EXECUTE pre-compilation function will be introduced, allowing ZK Rollup smart contracts on L1 to directly call the verification logic embedded in the L1 protocol without having to write contracts themselves.

This change brings three advantages to ZK-Rollup:

• First, security is fundamentally improved. Rollup projects can completely outsource the huge engineering challenges of building and maintaining EVM validators to L1, simplifying complex technical problems into a single line of code.

• Secondly, it achieves true EVM equivalence and forward compatibility, with native Rollup and L1 upgraded simultaneously without the need for an independent governance process;

• Finally, there is a significant improvement in cost-effectiveness. The use of L1 protocol embedded precompilation function avoids the overhead of virtual machine interpretation and execution. The verification efficiency is several orders of magnitude higher than that of smart contract implementation , which is expected to significantly reduce the operating cost of ZK Rollup.

This Native Rollup function is equivalent to Ethereum L1, which provides a standardized, highly secure and efficient verification layer for all ZK-Rollups for free, directly solving the core problems that have long plagued the development of ZK-Rollup: the high cost of on-chain proof verification, the technical challenges of maintaining EVM equivalence, and the security risks of validator contracts.

OP ROLLUP’s strategic transformation

In contrast, L1 ZKization poses a survival-level challenge to Optimistic Rollup. The core weakness of ORU lies in its 7-day withdrawal confirmation cycle, a delay that is unacceptable for many high-value applications. If L1 ZKization successfully improves throughput, it may lead to a large-scale outflow of capital and applications from the OP Rollup ecosystem.

However, OP Rollups (such as Base, Arbitrum, Optimism) currently dominate TVL and user activity, and this vested interest pattern has raised doubts about the prospect of L1 full ZKization . But it is gratifying that the leading ORU project did not choose to confront, but actively adapted to transform potential conflicts into technological convergence.

• Optimism has demonstrated a clear ZK-oriented strategy. Its OP Stack has emphasized modularity since its design, allowing the replacement of core components such as the proof system. The Optimism Foundation has invested funds to support multiple teams (such as RISC Zero, O(1) Labs, and Succinct) to develop ZK fraud proofs. For example, Zeth launched by RISC Zero has been integrated with OP Stack, enabling the Optimism ecosystem to verify block status and resolve disputes through ZK technology.

• Arbitrum adopts a more pragmatic hybrid route, and clearly puts forward the research and development direction of " ZK+Optimistic hybrid proof " in its official technical roadmap for 2024-2025. This design allows the system to use ZK proofs as "instant confirmation channels" when they can be generated in time, providing instant finality for on-chain state changes, greatly shortening the delay of fund withdrawals and cross-chain communication; when ZK proofs cannot be generated in time, the system automatically falls back to the traditional optimistic proof path, ensuring security through dispute periods and challenge mechanisms.

? 5. Systemic Impact?

The impact of this change will be systemic, spanning performance, decentralization, and economic models.

• Performance Vision : By reducing the verification cost to an extremely low level, Ethereum will be able to increase the block Gas limit by 10 times or even 100 times , bringing the total TPS of L1+L2 to more than 10,000 , becoming a truly high-performance platform.

• New economic division of labor : The ZKization of L1 will give birth to a specialized division of labor system similar to PBS (Proposer-Builder Separation).

  • Provers : They run expensive (up to $100,000) and high-power (up to 10 kilowatts) specialized hardware responsible for generating ZK proofs. Due to its high capital and operating costs, this role is likely to be centralized.

  • Validators : Their roles are greatly simplified and lightened. They no longer need to run a powerful execution client for transaction replay. An ordinary laptop or low-spec device is enough to download and verify a lightweight proof of less than 300 KiB in a short time.

  • This design resolves the contradiction between scalability and decentralization by centralizing computationally intensive tasks while maintaining broad decentralization of verification . A new, off-chain prover market will emerge. Provers will be paid through transaction fees, MEV sharing, and token incentives.

• ETH value capture reshaping : A more powerful L1 can carry more high-value transactions, directly pushing up transaction fees, thereby increasing the amount of ETH destroyed, which is crucial to stabilizing the price of ETH.

• Synergy with Danksharding : L1’s ZK-based vision and Danksharding’s roadmap complement each other, forming Ethereum’s “two-wheel drive” expansion strategy.

  • EIP-4844 and subsequent full Danksharding provide cheap, massive data availability space (Blobs) for Rollup.

  • ZK-based L1 provides Rollup (especially ZK Rollup) with an ultra-high security, ultra-fast finality execution and settlement layer.

  • The two are highly technically synergistic, allowing Ethereum to scale both at the execution layer (through ZK) and the data layer (through Danksharding) , comprehensively improving network utility and driving overall demand for ETH as a network-native asset.

? Conclusion: Towards a Verifiable World Computer?

Ethereum's strategic transformation to full ZK is another decisive moment in its development history. This is not an isolated technical upgrade, but a systematic, multi-dimensional comprehensive strategy to deal with technical bottlenecks, economic challenges and fierce market competition. It profoundly confirms Ethereum's role as the world's final settlement layer, provides a unique solution to the "impossible triangle" problem, optimizes ETH's economic model, and leads the entire L2 ecosystem to maturity.

The road ahead is still full of challenges, but the direction is clear. Ethereum is evolving from a "world computer" to a " verifiable world computer ". By deeply embedding cryptographic truths into its core, Ethereum is not only paving the way for its own future, but also building a more secure, reliable and scalable foundation for the future of the entire decentralized world. ZK Finality is Ethereum's most resolute commitment to this future.

• This article is based on public information analysis and does not constitute investment advice. Cryptocurrency investment is risky, please make decisions carefully, DYOR.

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