Ethereum has made another important technological advancement. Will it achieve a leap in 2026?

Written by: Blockchain Knight

The zkEVM ecosystem has achieved a performance leap after a year of hard work, with Ethereum block proof time plummeting from 16 minutes to 16 seconds, and cost reduction reaching 45 times. The participating zkVM can now complete 99% of mainnet block proofs on target hardware within 10 seconds.

On December 18, the Ethereum Foundation (EF) announced the implementation of real-time proof mechanisms and the removal of performance bottlenecks, but emphasized that the real challenge lies in reliability. A lack of security support for speed will become a burden, and several mathematical conjectures relied upon by zkEVM based on the STARK algorithm have recently been disproven, leading to a decrease in security levels.

EF previously set a comprehensive real-time proof goal in July, covering multiple dimensions such as latency, hardware, security, etc., and has now met the standards through EthProofs benchmarking.

The core shift lies in the transition from pursuing throughput to provable security, clarifying that L1 level zkEVM must achieve a 128-bit security standard, aligning with mainstream cryptographic norms, as forged proofs may lead to token forgery, L1 state tampering, and other fatal risks, making the security margin non-negotiable.

EF synchronously announces a three-phase security roadmap:

By the end of February 2026, all zkEVM teams must integrate their proof systems with the EF's soundcalc security assessment tool to unify security measurement standards.

Achieve Glamsterdam standards by the end of May, reaching the transitional goal of 100 provably safe.

Complete the final goal of H-star by the end of December, achieving 128-bit provable security, and providing a formal security proof in the form of a recursive topological structure.

To achieve the goal, EF mentioned core technical tools such as WHIR and JaggedPCS, which can improve efficiency by optimizing proof generation and avoiding computational waste, while also reducing proof size using techniques like recursive topology.

However, there are still multiple challenges. Real-time proof has not yet been implemented on the blockchain, and the actual performance of validators is in doubt; security parameters need to be dynamically adjusted as mathematical conjectures are falsified; it is unknown whether some teams can meet the deadlines; the formal verification projects of recursive architecture are still in the early stages, and the ecological development is uneven.

It is worth noting that the zkEVM after meeting the standards can support Ethereum in increasing the Gas limit, enhancing block capacity while ensuring the feasibility of staking, promoting L1 to become a trusted settlement layer, and blurring the boundaries between L2 and L1 execution.

Now that the performance sprint has concluded, the core proposition of the zkEVM ecosystem has shifted to achieving sufficiently reliable security proofs without relying on ephemeral conjectures, to support assets on the scale of hundreds of billions. The current security competition has officially begun, and this will become the main theme of Ethereum in 2026.