Recently, the most frequently asked question is, how to view the narrative of Ethereum?

Indeed, Ethereum focused on ICOs and the world computer in 2017, and in 2021 it was DeFi and the financial settlement layer. However, in this round of 2025, there seems to be few new narratives that can match the old narratives in terms of height.

Perhaps ETFs and Staking ETFs count as half, but this is not within the control of Ethereum developers. If we are to mention another half, it can only be ZK.

Ethereum is indeed the public chain that bets the most on ZK in the entire Crypto world, without a doubt.

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?

In fact, Ethereum's TPS is already not low, with the theoretical peak having increased to over 200 TPS, primarily because Ethereum has repeatedly raised the Gas limit. However, raising the Gas limit comes at a cost; it cannot be increased indefinitely. The cost is that nodes need more expensive servers to run.

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

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

So what are the benefits after ZK?

Those ETH nodes can simply verify these ZK proofs without needing to verify transactions painstakingly one by one as in the past.

For example, if you are a teacher grading papers (nodes), those transactions are like students' exam papers.

Manually grading papers in the past was certainly slow. But since the introduction of answer sheets (ZK transformation), the machine can calculate the total score of students in a second, making your job as a teacher much easier.

You are more efficient; in the past, one person could only grade 50 papers, but now they can grade 1000 papers, and it's still the same person, leading to a significant increase in efficiency.

Therefore, Ethereum must first ZK-ify the mainnet before it can continue to significantly raise the Gas limit.

ZK transformation itself does not directly increase TPS; it is a prerequisite. Performance improvements still rely on raising the Gas limit, but after ZK transformation, nodes do not need to incur too much additional server costs, making the cost much smaller.

After the last Fusaka upgrade (especially the PeerDAS upgrade) performed well, Ethereum has taken another step closer to ZK-ifying the mainnet, which is why Vitalik is so excited.

Imagine a mainnet with TPS exceeding a thousand; that would indeed be a good narrative for Ethereum.

Someone raised a question:

If Ethereum personally implements ZK-EVM for the mainnet, do other ZK teams still have significance?

To conclude, they still have significance.

Why?

First, the ZK project is one of the most challenging developments in the entire network, sitting at the same table as FHE. It requires a large number of cryptographic talents.

I believe the ETH Foundation has some reserves in this area, but as an open-source community, Ethereum adheres to the philosophy that many hands make light work, and it needs a large number of third-party ZK teams to experiment and innovate. In return, Ethereum will provide substantial support.

Secondly, there are four types of ZK-EVM, from type 1 to type 4. Teams including Polygon, Scroll, ZKsync, and Taiko are somewhat like each person claiming a task, each working on implementing one of the types.

Additionally, there is ZK-VM, such as Brevis.

In fact, ZK-VM holds a more stable position compared to ZK-EVM.

The reason is that among the four major types of ZK-EVM, it is highly likely that one will emerge as the most cost-effective solution, becoming part of the designated ZK-EVM for the Ethereum mainnet, which may affect the other three.

However, ZK-VM itself is not EVM compatible, so it will definitely be part of Ethereum's diversity.

Moreover, because the VM is not constrained by EVM limitations, its performance can be very high. Ethereum's ZK-EVM poses no threat to it; rather, Ethereum will continue to encourage it.

For example, Vitalik previously mentioned the performance of Brevis's ZK-VM and expressed anticipation for their entry into the ZK-EVM field.

What about L2? It may have some impact, but still not significant.

When Vitalik talked about Polygon, he mentioned that ZK and L2 should be compared separately.

A ZK-ified L1 will certainly attract some users back from ZK L2, as long as L1 is cheap enough, the number of users on L2 may decrease.

But conversely, think of it this way: if L1 is the foundation and L2 is the skyscraper, the foundation should be as solid as possible. Therefore, with the ZK transformation of the L1 mainnet, L2 will also benefit from reduced costs.

Moreover, in that tweet, Vitalik specifically mentioned Brevis, which is working on ZK-VM. The reason is that much of Brevis's ZK work is not limited to L2, i.e., "ZK research and L2 research are separate."

For example, they have a market for ZK computing power, helping Uniswap's hooks with ZK-ified reward distribution, which is application-driven.

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

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