The Ethereum Foundation is making a clear strategic shift. zkEVM development now prioritizes security over actual performance. After a year of dramatic speed and cost advances, the Foundation has indicated that its next steps will focus on long-term resilience. This decision reconfigures zkEVM's progression from rapid experimentation to production-grade infrastructure.
Breakthroughs in speed no longer define progress
The zkEVM team has already realized significant efficiency gains. The proof time was reduced from approximately 16 minutes to approximately 16 seconds. Over the same period, costs have fallen nearly 45 times. These achievements remove previous usability barriers. Ethereum no longer needs to prove that zk scalability works. Going forward, the zk system must prove secure under global economic stress.
The Foundation now mandates strict encryption guarantees. Developers must achieve 100-bit provable security by May 2026 and full 128-bit security by the end of the year. These goals bring zkEVM closer to traditional encryption standards used in finance and national security. Ethereum explicitly rejects shortcuts that rely on untested assumptions.
ZK proof risk drives change
Some modern zk systems rely on mathematical guesses that lack thorough validation in the real world. The Foundation openly warns of these risks. Encourage teams to strengthen proof systems, expand auditing, and reduce reliance on weak assumptions. Security failures at the ZK layer can cascade throughout rollups, bridges, and DeFi protocols. Ethereum chooses prevention over speed considerations.
Ethereum aligns this security push with institutional support. The foundation highlights Ethereum's track record of near-perfect uptime and over 1 million validators securing the network since 2015. Companies want predictability and provable guarantees, not experimental speed records. The maturation of zkEVM security supports Ethereum's role as a neutral payments layer for global finance.
Ethereum signals long-term maturity
This roadmap represents a cultural shift. Ethereum no longer competes with competitors solely on benchmarks. It builds an infrastructure intended to withstand decades of hostile pressure. Adopts speed unlock zkEVM. Security will determine whether zkEVM becomes the foundation of a global financial stack.
