Vitalik Buterin said the speed race for zero-knowledge Ethereum is over. Not close to over. Over. And he wants the people building it to stop chasing benchmarks and start proving their systems can’t break.
That’s a notable shift. For a long time, the headline number in this corner of crypto has been how fast a team can generate a proof. Buterin is now saying that number has stopped being the one that matters most.
The speed fight has a winner, Buterin said
The comment came in a post on X congratulating the ZKsync Airbender team on a new milestone. Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, said zkEVM teams should now focus fully on security.
“Big congratulations to the @zksync airbender team for this milestone. At this point, I consider the battle for speed to be definitively won, and the top priority for zkEVMs should shift fully to security. To me that means formally verifying (i) equivalence of the arithmetization to the ethereum spec (ii) a hard maximum bound on (prover cost) / (amount of gas in block) (iii) security of the proof system itself” Buterin said.
If you haven’t followed this part of Ethereum, zkEVMs are tools that prove Ethereum transactions with math. The network’s roadmap leans more and more on zero-knowledge proofs to check blocks. That raises the stakes. A proof that’s fast but wrong isn’t a performance win. It’s a liability.
Three things Buterin wants proven
His list for formal verification is short and specific. First, teams should prove that the math behind the proofs matches the Ethereum spec exactly. Any gap there means the proof could be checking something other than what Ethereum says should happen.
Second is a hard maximum on prover cost relative to the gas in a block. This one is less obvious but arguably more practical. If a heavy block makes proving too expensive, smaller operators get pushed out, and that chips away at decentralization.
Third is the security of the proof system itself. Buterin wants developers to close all three gaps before the technology carries real weight on the network.
Meanwhile, the chart isn’t cooperating
The timing is awkward for ETH holders. The token trades near $2,365 on the daily chart, down about 15% from its late September high near $2,800.
It slipped through the blue and cyan moving averages around $2,490 and $2,550 and now sits on the orange average near $2,360. The black average near $2,305 is the next support, just under the recent low of $2,313.
Volume is steady but not strong. The RSI sits near 38, close to oversold territory, which points to sellers holding control. A bounce could form if the orange and black averages hold, and a move back above $2,490 would be the first sign of recovery.
Why traders won’t care, and why you might
Don’t expect this post to move the price. Security work is slow, and traders are unlikely to react to a call for formal verification.
But it does set direction. If teams follow it, Ethereum could end up with proofs that are fast, cheap and trusted, which is what the roadmap needs to work. For anyone holding ETH this week, though, the number to watch is $2,305. A break below it could put the larger recovery since August at risk.
