Ethereum’s future hinges on zero-knowledge proofs, EF director says

Ethereum is steadily moving toward a future where zero-knowledge cryptography becomes a core part of the network itself, reflecting years of research that are now converging with real-world progress,said Ethereum Foundation co-executive director Hsiao-Wei Wang.

In a recent interview with CoinDesk, the director, who was one of the key developers in designing the Merge, described zero-knowledge as part of Ethereum’s midterm roadmap, pointing to “many amazing breakthroughs” in the past one to two years.

More immediate upgrades remain focused on improving execution and blob space for layer-2 networks, but Wang, who will be speaking at CoinDesk’s Consensus Hong Kong conference next month, said zero-knowledge is increasingly feasible as a protocol-level feature.

Incorporating zero-knowledge into Ethereum tooling first came to the ecosystem around 2021, when zero-knowledge rollups began emerging as an alternative way to transact more quickly and cheaply than on Ethereum’s main network. These rollups bundle transactions off-chain and submit cryptographic proofs back to Ethereum, allowing users to benefit from lower fees while still inheriting the network’s security.

Bringing zero-knowledge directly into Ethereum’s core would change that dynamic. In simple terms, the network could verify compact mathematical proofs that confirm blocks were computed correctly. That could dramatically reduce the work required to secure Ethereum, making it easier to scale without sacrificing decentralization or reliability.

Ethereum researchers have published plans for a native zkEVM, allowing the network to verify transactions using zero-knowledge proofs by default.

For Wang, the effort reinforces Ethereum’s long-standing priorities. “I do think that resilience is still the soul of Ethereum,” she said, emphasizing security, censorship resistance and neutrality even as the network evolves.

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