Bankless Ethereum's Last Big Upgrade: The zkEVM | Ansgar Dietrichs
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Feb 23, 2026 
Ansgar Dietrichs, an Ethereum Foundation researcher focused on scaling and protocol design, breaks down the ZK EVM and why verifying blocks without re-execution matters. He sketches the three scaling bottlenecks and how real-time proofs, RISC-V compiled clients, and blobs could shift verification. He outlines a phased rollout from optional to mandatory proofs and a rough path toward ZK-native Ethereum by 2030.
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Three‑Part Synergy For Full Scaling
- Pair ZKVM with partial statelessness and block blobs to scale bandwidth, IO, and compute together.
- These three synergies let L1 achieve rollup-like throughput while staying verifiable.
Verifiability Over Raw Speed
- Ethereum prioritizes easy verifiability and auditability to keep trust with users, even if that slows throughput.
- ZKVM promises both verifiability and performance, removing the old tradeoff.
ZKVM Boosts Throughput, Not Latency
- ZKVM primarily raises throughput (bigger blocks) but doesn't inherently lower consensus latency.
- Consensus-layer upgrades pursue faster finality and inclusion on a separate roadmap.