ETH Foundation Prioritizes Zero-Knowledge Proofs as the Core of its Mid-Term Strategy
The ETH Foundation has officially designated zero-knowledge (ZK) cryptography as the primary architectural pillar for the network’s evolution throughout 2026. In recent public statements, Co-Executive Director Hsiao-Wei Wang and prominent researchers have confirmed that the Foundation is pivoting away from a model where every Block confirmer re-executes every transaction, moving instead toward a system based on succinct mathematical proofs. This “ZK-native” vision aims to solve the long-standing blockchain trilemma by allowing the base layer to scale exponentially without sacrificing decentralization or increasing hardware requirements for individual node operators. By integrating ZK proofs directly into the protocol, the Foundation expects to transform ETH into a “universal verifier,” where Block confirmers only need to check a compact proof to confirm that a block’s state transitions are valid, a process that is significantly quicker and cheaper than traditional execution.
The Roadmap to Native zkEVM and the 128-Bit Security Standard
A critical milestone in this strategy is the development of a native zero-knowledge ETH Virtual Machine (zkEVM), which would allow the Layer 1 mainnet to default to ZK validation for all transactions. The ETH Foundation has established a rigorous three-stage technical roadmap for 2026, with a primary focus on reaching a “128-bit provable security” standard by the end of the year. This shift follows a 2025 development phase that successfully reduced proving times from sixteen minutes to under sixteen seconds; however, researchers have cautioned that many existing proof systems rely on unproven mathematical conjectures. To mitigate this risk, the Foundation is mandating that all zkEVM implementations pass formal verification and security audits before they are eligible for mainnet-grade deployment. This focus on “security over speed” is intended to make ETH production-ready for the world’s largest financial institutions, who require ironclad cryptographic guarantees before settling trillions of dollars in on-chain assets.
Enabling the GigaGas Era through Lean Execution and Block confirmer Diversity
The strategic pivot toward ZK proofs is also the prerequisite for the Foundation’s “GigaGas” era, which aims to increase the base layer’s gas limit and achieve a target throughput of 10,000 transactions per second. Under the current roadmap, approximately 10% of ETH Block confirmers are expected to transition to an optional “Lean Execution” mode by late 2026, where they focus exclusively on proof verification rather than full block re-execution. This transition is expected to significantly lower the barrier to entry for solo stakers, as the computational load of verifying a ZK proof is so minimal that it could theoretically be performed on a smartphone or a low-cost microcomputer. By shifting the “heavy lifting” of proof generation to specialized provers while keeping verification accessible to everyone, the ETH Foundation is positioning the network to become the most scalable and inclusive decentralized settlement layer in the global digital economy.
