1. Ethereum’s Real Bottleneck: the Verification Ceiling
The fastest way to scale L1 is simply raise the gas-limit—bigger blocks, more throughput.
But Ethereum’s “all-nodes-verify-everything” architecture means every validator must re-execute every transaction in the 4–8 s window before the 12 s slot ends. Push the limit too high and the network centralizes as weak validators drop off.
We need a path to “verify once, trust everywhere” without sacrificing security.

2. ZK-VM Turns “All-Verify” into “One-Prove + All-Check”

• A ZK-VM generates a succinct proof that the new state-root is correct.

• Validators don’t re-run calldata; they verify a 200-byte BLS12-381 proof in ~2 ms.

• Gas-limit can then scale 5–50× because proof-size is log-linear in computation, not linear.
  In plain English: instead of every boss signing your leave form, HR attaches a forged-proof stamp that no one can fake; the rest of the staff just glance at the stamp.

3. The 10 s / $100 k Constraint
Ethereum’s culture prizes decentralization. If proving hardware drifts into H100 / B200 territory ($300 k+), only hyperscalers play.
Target spec set by EF:

• ≤ $100 k capex per prover machine

• ≥ 96 % of blocks proved within 10 s (leaving 1–2 s for MEV building + 1 s propagation)

4. Brevis Pico-Prism: First Live Demo

• 64 × RTX-5090 GPUs ($1.4 k each) → $90 k total

• 99.6 % of mainnet blocks (45 M gas) proved in ≤ 12 s

• 96.8 % proved in ≤ 10 s

• Proof cost per block: ~$0.08 (electricity + depreciation)
  They achieve this through a custom multi-GPU parallelization layer (CUDA kernels + lookup-table拆分) and a new commitment scheme called Prism that shards witness data across cards without memory blow-up.

5. Road-map Implications

• Pectra upgrade (Est. Apr 2026) ships EIP-7840: blob-base-fee reduced 4×, but gas-limit hike only safe if ZK-proof pipeline is live.

• Fusaka (late 2026) is expected to enshrine “ZK-Receipt” : proofs become part of the consensus layer; invalid blocks are rejected outright.

• Third-party ZK-VMs (Brevis, Risc0, Nil, Scroll) compete to be the reference prover; winner keeps 10–20 % of priority fees for compute reimbursement.

6. Investment Take-away

• Hardware: NVIDIA RTX-5090 and AMD MI-300 are the sweet-spot SKUs; hyperscaler GPUs are overkill.

• Tokens: keep an eye on ZK-VM infra plays that capture proving fees (e.g., BREVI, RISC, NIL).

• Staking pools that run in-house provers will harvest extra MEV + proving tips; centralized custodians without ZK rigs may see yield compression.

• Ethereum itself: successful ZK-ization removes the last technical objection to a 100 M+ gas limit, making L1 a credible high-throughput settlement layer again.

Bottom line
Raise gas-limit → need ZK proofs → need a commodity, sub-$100 k, sub-10 s prover. The first team that nails the hardware economics wins the next Ethereum upgrade cycle—and possibly a built-in revenue slot at consensus layer.

1. Ethereum’s Real Bottleneck: the Verification Ceiling
The fastest way to scale L1 is simply raise the gas-limit—bigger blocks, more throughput.
But Ethereum’s “all-nodes-verify-everything” architecture means every validator must re-execute every transaction in the 4–8 s window before the 12 s slot ends. Push the limit too high and the network centralizes as weak validators drop off.
We need a path to “verify once, trust everywhere” without sacrificing security.

2. ZK-VM Turns “All-Verify” into “One-Prove + All-Check”

• A ZK-VM generates a succinct proof that the new state-root is correct.

• Validators don’t re-run calldata; they verify a 200-byte BLS12-381 proof in ~2 ms.

• Gas-limit can then scale 5–50× because proof-size is log-linear in computation, not linear.
  In plain English: instead of every boss signing your leave form, HR attaches a forged-proof stamp that no one can fake; the rest of the staff just glance at the stamp.

3. The 10 s / $100 k Constraint
Ethereum’s culture prizes decentralization. If proving hardware drifts into H100 / B200 territory ($300 k+), only hyperscalers play.
Target spec set by EF:

• ≤ $100 k capex per prover machine

• ≥ 96 % of blocks proved within 10 s (leaving 1–2 s for MEV building + 1 s propagation)

4. Brevis Pico-Prism: First Live Demo

• 64 × RTX-5090 GPUs ($1.4 k each) → $90 k total

• 99.6 % of mainnet blocks (45 M gas) proved in ≤ 12 s

• 96.8 % proved in ≤ 10 s

• Proof cost per block: ~$0.08 (electricity + depreciation)
  They achieve this through a custom multi-GPU parallelization layer (CUDA kernels + lookup-table拆分) and a new commitment scheme called Prism that shards witness data across cards without memory blow-up.

5. Road-map Implications

• Pectra upgrade (Est. Apr 2026) ships EIP-7840: blob-base-fee reduced 4×, but gas-limit hike only safe if ZK-proof pipeline is live.

• Fusaka (late 2026) is expected to enshrine “ZK-Receipt” : proofs become part of the consensus layer; invalid blocks are rejected outright.

• Third-party ZK-VMs (Brevis, Risc0, Nil, Scroll) compete to be the reference prover; winner keeps 10–20 % of priority fees for compute reimbursement.

6. Investment Take-away

• Hardware: NVIDIA RTX-5090 and AMD MI-300 are the sweet-spot SKUs; hyperscaler GPUs are overkill.

• Tokens: keep an eye on ZK-VM infra plays that capture proving fees (e.g., BREVI, RISC, NIL).

• Staking pools that run in-house provers will harvest extra MEV + proving tips; centralized custodians without ZK rigs may see yield compression.

• Ethereum itself: successful ZK-ization removes the last technical objection to a 100 M+ gas limit, making L1 a credible high-throughput settlement layer again.

Bottom line
Raise gas-limit → need ZK proofs → need a commodity, sub-$100 k, sub-10 s prover. The first team that nails the hardware economics wins the next Ethereum upgrade cycle—and possibly a built-in revenue slot at consensus layer.