Why does Ethereum urgently need ZK technology?

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One of the most frequently asked questions recently is, how to view the narrative of Ethereum?

Indeed, Ethereum’s narrative in 2017 focused on ICOs and the world computer, while in 2021 it was DeFi and financial settlement layers. However, in 2025, there seems to be little new narrative that can match the previous ones in significance.

ETFs and Staking ETFs could be considered half of it, but that is not within the control of Ethereum developers. If we are to consider the other half, it can only be ZK.

Ethereum is undoubtedly the blockchain that has invested the most in ZK across the entire crypto space, no doubt about it.

A few days ago, Vitalik was quite excited. He announced on Twitter that ZKEVM has now entered the Alpha stage.

Why is Ethereum so persistent about ZK?

Actually, Ethereum’s TPS is already quite high now, with a theoretical peak exceeding 200 TPS. The reason is that Ethereum has repeatedly increased the Gas limit. But raising the Gas limit comes at a cost, and it cannot be increased endlessly. The cost is that nodes need more expensive servers to run.

However, Ethereum also wants to maintain its proud high level of decentralization, so it cannot push node server performance too high (for reference, a single Solana server is about 5–10 times more expensive than an ETH server).

Therefore, the mainnet must be ZK-enabled. Note that this is not as simple as deploying a few ZK L2s; it is a full ZK transformation of the L1 mainnet.

So, what are the benefits after ZK?

Nodes can simply verify these ZK proofs without the cumbersome transaction-by-transaction validation as in the past.

For example, imagine you are a grader (node), and the transactions are students’ exam papers.

In the past, grading manually was slow. But since the advent of the answer sheet coloring tool (ZK transformation), a machine can calculate the total score of students in one second. As a teacher, wouldn’t that make your job much easier?

You become more relaxed. Previously, one person could grade 50 papers; now, they can grade 1000, with the same person, but efficiency skyrockets.

Therefore, Ethereum must first ZK-enable the mainnet before it can further significantly raise the Gas limit.

ZK itself does not directly increase TPS; it is a prerequisite. Improving performance still depends on raising the Gas limit, but after ZK transformation, nodes do not need to spend much more on servers, making the cost very low.

After the last Fusaka upgrade (especially the PeerDAS upgrade), which has been running well, Ethereum has taken another step toward mainnet ZK, which is why Vitalik is so excited.

Imagine a mainnet with TPS exceeding 1000; for Ethereum, that would indeed be a compelling narrative.

Someone raised a question:

If Ethereum personally develops ZK-EVM for the mainnet, do other ZK teams still have a purpose?

The conclusion is, yes, they still matter.

Why?

First, ZK development is one of the most challenging projects across the entire network, comparable to FHE. It requires a large number of cryptography experts.

The Ethereum Foundation likely has some reserves in this area, but as an open-source community, Ethereum believes in the power of collective effort—many third-party ZK teams are needed for trial and error and innovation. In return, Ethereum will provide substantial support.

Second, ZK-EVM has four types, from type1 to type4. Teams like Polygon, Scroll, ZKsync, and Taiko are working on different types, each seemingly claiming a task to implement one of these types.

Additionally, there are ZK-VMs, such as Brevis.

In fact, ZK-VMs are more stable than ZK-EVMs.

The reason is that the four main types of ZK-EVM will likely converge on the most cost-effective solution, which will become part of Ethereum’s mainnet ZK-EVM, potentially influencing the other three.

However, ZK-VMs are not EVM-compatible, so they will serve as part of Ethereum’s diversity.

Moreover, since VM does not need to be constrained by EVM limitations, its performance can be very high. Ethereum’s ZK-EVM poses no threat to it; instead, the Ethereum team will continue to encourage its development.

For example, Vitalik previously mentioned the performance of Brevis’s ZK-VM and looked forward to its entry into the ZK-EVM space.

What about L2? It might have some impact but still limited.

Vitalik once said when discussing Polygon that ZK and L2 should be considered separately.

After ZK transformation of L1, it will naturally attract some users from ZK L2s, because if L1 is cheap enough, users on L2 might decrease.

But think of it this way: L1 is the foundation, and L2 is the skyscraper. The foundation should be as solid as possible, so ZK-transforming the mainnet benefits L2 as well by reducing costs.

In that tweet, Vitalik also specifically mentioned Brevis’s ZK-VM. The reason is that Brevis’s ZK work is not limited to L2, i.e., “separating ZK research from L2 research.”

For example, they have a ZK computing marketplace, helping Uniswap with ZK-based reward distribution, which is application-driven.

In summary, Ethereum has been around for 10 years, and the idea of ZK transformation has been around for five or six years. After years of effort, ZK transformation has finally entered the Alpha stage, thanks to continuous investment from Ethereum and many third-party ZK teams including Brevis and Polygon.