- Real-time proving technology is advancing rapidly to help scale the Ethereum network.
- Ethereum could process over 100 times more transactions in the near future with these new methods.
- Recent progress allows finalizing most transactions in under 12 seconds, reducing bottlenecks.
- The improvements rely on powerful hardware, but energy costs are expected to decrease soon.
- Ethereum may eventually match or surpass the transaction capacity of leading layer 2 networks.
Ethereum is making significant progress towards scaling its network by implementing real-time proving technology, which could allow it to process far more transactions per second. The move comes as the network seeks to address long-standing limits on transaction capacity.
According to Justin Drake of the Ethereum Foundation, the innovation is already delivering strong results. In his recent statements, he noted that throughput has increased by 100 times since the network began, and he believes another 100-fold increase is possible in half the previous time frame.
Real-time proving uses zero-knowledge proofs, a cryptographic method that enables fast transaction verification. This technique reduces the average transaction finalization time from 13 minutes to about 12 seconds. “Throughput has grown 100x since genesis ten years ago,” Drake wrote in an X post, adding that this advancement could remove key bottlenecks in the system.
The Ethereum network previously relied on validator nodes to confirm and finalize transactions, which slowed the process and limited the number of transactions the system could handle. As usage grew, this led to the creation of more centralized layer 2 networks with higher speeds but less decentralization. With real-time proving, Ethereum’s main network could eventually match these alternatives in transaction speed.
Multiple projects are now leading the charge in real-time proving. In May, Succinct released its SP1 Hypercube, claiming it could finalize 94% of blocks in under 12 seconds. On Wednesday, Brevis announced that its zkVM, Pico Prism, can finalize 99.9% of blocks within the same timeframe, according to a company statement.
Currently, these achievements depend on high-powered hardware that uses significant electricity. However, Drake expects hardware requirements to drop soon, estimating that teams will prove blocks using less than 10 kilowatts—similar to the energy use of a home electric car charger—by the end of this year.
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