Now, scaling.There are two buckets here: short-term and long-term.Short term scaling I've written about elsewhere. Basically:* Block level access lists (coming in Glamsterdam) allow blocks to be verified in parallel.* ePBS (coming in Glamsterdam) has many features, of which one is that it becomes safe to use a large fraction of each slot (instead of just a few hundred milliseconds) to verify a block* Gas repricings ensure that gas costs of operations are aligned with the actual time it takes to execute them ...

Vitalik Buterin said he is building a "cypherpunk-principled" Ethereum as a bolt-on to the current system, aiming to enhance censorship resistance, zk-friendliness and leaner consensus. He suggested that within five years — possibly sooner with AI — Ethereum could migrate to a new system language, with further upgrades planned to the state tree, consensus, ZK-EVM verification and VM.https://t.co/GTbw2YU8P9 ...

RT vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin)There have recently been some discussions on the ongoing role of L2s in the Ethereum ecosystem, especially in the face of two facts:* L2s' progress to stage 2 (and, secondarily, on interop) has been far slower and more difficult than originally expected* L1 itself is scaling, fees are very low, and gaslimits are projected to increase greatly in 2026Both of these facts, for their own separate reasons, mean that the original vision of L2s and their role in Ethereum no longer ma ...

There have recently been some discussions on the ongoing role of L2s in the Ethereum ecosystem, especially in the face of two facts:* L2s' progress to stage 2 (and, secondarily, on interop) has been far slower and more difficult than originally expected* L1 itself is scaling, fees are very low, and gaslimits are projected to increase greatly in 2026Both of these facts, for their own separate reasons, mean that the original vision of L2s and their role in Ethereum no longer makes sense, and we need a new pat ...

2026 is the year that we take back lost ground in terms of self-sovereignty and trustlessness.Some of what this practically means:Full nodes: thanks to ZK-EVM and BAL, it will once again become easier to locally run a node and verify the Ethereum chain on your own computer.Helios: actually verify the data you're receiving from RPCs instead of blindly trusting it.ORAM, PIR: ask for data from RPCs without revealing which data you're asking, so you can access dapps without your access patterns being sold off t ...

Vitalik Buterin said that modexp (the modular exponentiation precompile) is currently the most ZK-EVM-unfriendly component, being up to 50 times more complex than average blocks. He suggested introducing a new EIP to replace it with computationally equivalent EVM code, even if this increases gas costs. Vitalik noted that modexp is mainly used for RSA encryption and signing, which can instead be handled through SNARK-based solutions.https://t.co/3e5niUC9uk ...

Performance Bottleneck - Modexp is identified as a significant bottleneck in ZK-EVM prover efficiency, exhibiting performance up to 50x worse than average blocks [1] Proposed Solutions - Suggests replacing the modexp precompile with computationally equivalent EVM code, acknowledging a potential increase in gas costs [1] - Recommends that applications requiring modexp functionality (primarily for RSA encryption/signing) should encapsulate it within a SNARK [1] Industry Impact - Indicates that very few applications rely on modexp, limiting the widespread impact of addressing this inefficiency [1]

Ethereum Ecosystem Contributions - Polygon hosts Polymarket, a successful "not just boring finance" application, demonstrating valuable use cases beyond traditional finance [1] - Polygon has supported various applications requiring high scalability within the Ethereum ecosystem [1] - Polygon invested significantly in ZK-EVM proving technology early on, contributing to the advancement of the field [2] - Polygon has developed infrastructure for proof aggregation (AggLayer) and other technologies [2] Philanthropic Efforts - Sandeep Nailwal contributed personally to CryptoRelief_, supporting biomedical infrastructure and research in India [2] - Sandeep Nailwal voluntarily returned $190 million from SHIB tokens, enabling the Balvi open-source anti-airborne-disease biotech program [3] - CZ (Binance) donated $10 million in BNB to support the Balvi program, with additional ~$20 million contributed personally [3] ZK Technology and L2 Landscape - The market structure has evolved, with L2 teams and ZK teams becoming separate entities, potentially more efficient than in-house development [5] - The author hopes Polygon can adopt readily available ZK technology for its PoS chain to achieve full security guarantees from the Ethereum L1 [6] - ZK technology has improved significantly, with proving costs around $0.0001 per transaction, challenging the perception of ZK being unviable for hyperscale applications [6]

Technology & Protocol - GKR 协议是一系列能够实现极速证明系统的协议 [1] - GKR 协议是快速 ZK-EVM 和 zk-ML 证明的核心协议 [1] - GKR 协议针对具有多个低阶层和许多重复函数应用（例如哈希和神经网络）的计算进行了优化 [1] - GKR 协议只需要对输入和输出进行承诺，而不需要中间层，大大提高了效率 [1]

Technology Advancement - Brevis' Pico Prism enters the ZK-EVM proving arena, marking a step forward in proving speed and diversity [1] - Pico Prism, a zkVM for Ethereum real-time proving, achieves 996% of blocks proven under 12 seconds [1] - Pico Prism achieves an average proving time of 69 seconds using 64 RTX 5090 GPUs [1] Scalability & Validation - This advancement aims to scale Ethereum by 100x [1] - The technology envisions a future where chain validation can be performed from a phone [1]