The Ethereum Foundation announced that the zkEVM ecosystem has effectively solved the performance problem, achieving near real-time proving where 99% of Ethereum mainnet blocks can be proven in under 10 seconds on target hardware. With latency and cost barriers largely removed, the focus now shifts from speed to security.

The EF warned that many STARK-based zkEVMs have relied on mathematical assumptions that have recently been weakened or broken, reducing their effective security. As a result, the foundation is prioritizing provable security over conjectural guarantees and has set 128-bit security as a non-negotiable long-term standard for any zkEVM used at Layer 1.

To enforce this shift, EF introduced a three-stage roadmap running through 2026, centered around a shared security-evaluation tool called soundcalc. An interim target of 100-bit provable security is set for mid-2026, followed by a full 128-bit requirement by the end of the year, alongside strict limits on proof size and formal verification of recursion architectures.

While new cryptographic tools such as WHIR and improved polynomial commitment techniques may make these goals achievable, major open questions remain. It is unclear whether all zkEVM teams can meet the security thresholds without sacrificing proof size or decentralization. The key challenge ahead is no longer raw performance, but mathematically sound, formally verified security capable of supporting Ethereum as a global settlement layer.