Fun fact: besides Ethereum mainnet, which chain currently leads the RWA space?
The answer — ZKsync.
That’s right — one of Ethereum’s original “Big Four” Layer 2s, recently praised by Vitalik for its underrated but valuable work, is now emerging as the flagship of Ethereum’s ZK roadmap.
Source: Vitalik’s post on X
Behind this lies a signal that Ethereum is approaching a “singularity moment” in the ZKP era — evolving from a mere scaling tool into the backbone for rethinking trust, performance, and ecosystem design.
An Ethereum built for the proof era is gradually taking shape.
1. ZKsync: the new standard-bearer for Ethereum ZKPs
Developed by Matter Labs, ZKsync is a ZK Rollup–based scaling solution for Ethereum. Among all Layer 2 projects, it started out with strong backing as one of the earliest ZK Rollup efforts funded by the Ethereum Foundation.
Since 2019, it has effectively grown up alongside Ethereum’s ZK-focused roadmap:
- Mar 2019 — Received a grant in the EF’s fifth wave to support ZK-based L2 work
- Sep 2019 — Raised $2 million seed round led by Placeholder VC
- Mar 2021 — Raised $50 million Series A led by Union Square Ventures
But as the roadmap stretched out, the journey was anything but smooth. Between 2021 and 2023, before the Rollup landscape stabilized, OP-style L2s like Optimism and Arbitrum took the early lead. Meanwhile, new L1s such as Solana and Aptos rose quickly, leaving ZK-based projects like ZKsync temporarily sidelined by slower iteration cycles.
It wasn’t until its mainnet launch and token airdrop last year that ZKsync returned to the spotlight — but not without turbulence. Its airdrop distribution drew criticism, a smart-contract vulnerability triggered a trust crisis, and developer Matter Labs faced an IP dispute that kept it in the headlines.
Even so, ZKsync’s technical and ecosystem progress has been remarkable. It continued advancing core infrastructure R&D and, last month, officially rolled out the Atlas upgrade for the ZK Stack — a pivotal step toward enterprise-grade on-chain adoption.
Source: ZKsync
Atlas integrates a high-performance sequencer capable of processing 25 k – 30 k transactions per second (TPS), along with the Airbender proving system, which enables sub-second confirmations.
Airbender is currently the fastest zkVM for single-GPU verification — on an RTX 4090, average proof time is ≈ 51 seconds, at a cost of only $0.01 per proof, setting a new industry benchmark.
Another milestone is Prividiums, ZKsync’s private-chain architecture. It lets enterprises preserve privacy while remaining fully interoperable with Ethereum mainnet — validating transaction correctness without exposing ledger data, enabling seamless interplay between public and private systems.
This unlocks real-world use cases: on-chain securities, cross-border payments, and FX settlement can all achieve near-instant clearing with privacy under compliant frameworks. That capability makes ZKsync an ideal base layer for RWA tokenization.
According to rwa.xyz, tokenized assets issued on ZKsync have surpassed $2.4 billion, second only to Ethereum mainnet — making ZKsync the second-largest RWA issuance network.
In short, ZKsync is no longer just a testbed for ZK technology; it’s becoming the ledger engine for bringing real-world assets on-chain. (Further reading: “Ethereum’s New Role: From World Computer to World Ledger”).
2. Has the zkEVM endgame really arrived?
For years, zkEVM has been viewed as one of Ethereum’s true endgame solutions — not only fixing performance bottlenecks but redefining trust itself.
Its core idea is to give Ethereum mainnet the native ability to generate and verify ZK proofs. After each block executes, the network outputs a mathematically verifiable proof, so other nodes don’t need to replay transactions — they simply verify the proof to confirm correctness.
Three main advantages:
- Faster verification: Nodes skip re-execution, confirming validity through zkProofs.
- Lighter load: Cuts compute & storage pressure on full nodes, empowering light clients and cross-chain verifiers.
- Stronger security: Unlike OP-based approaches, ZK state proofs finalize on-chain in real time with clearer security boundaries.
All of this is rapidly moving from theory into practice. Recently, the Ethereum Foundation (EF) published an L1 zkEVM real-time proof standard, marking the first time ZK proofs are formally written into mainnet-level planning.
Over the next year, Ethereum is expected to transition toward a native proof-verification environment — shifting from re-execution to proof verification.
EF’s roadmap targets:
- Block-proof latency ≈ 10 s or less
- Individual zk proof ≤ 300 KB
- 128-bit security, no trusted setup
- Consumer-grade hardware support for proof generation
This evolution transforms Ethereum from a mere settlement layer into a “verifiable world computer.”
In this context, ZKsync stands out as one of the earliest implementers. Founder Alex Gluchowski noted that with Atlas, ZKsync now achieves unified verification with Ethereum mainnet — aligned in timing, confirmation speed, and liquidity.
Source: Alex’s post on X
ZKsync currently finalizes transactions in ~1 second, far faster than Ethereum’s 12-second blocks. In practice, transacting on ZKsync feels almost identical to mainnet — you mainly wait for mainnet confirmation.
Crucially, unlike Optimistic Rollups, ZK Rollups eliminate the 7-day challenge period, enabling order-of-magnitude faster transfers and withdrawals.
Under this architecture, L2s stop being fragmented extensions and instead become parallel scaling networks to Ethereum itself.
Liquidity is unified, verification latency shortened, and the long-standing “L2 fragmentation” problem finally meets a technical cure.
3. What kind of future is Ethereum moving toward?
If you’ve followed Vitalik lately, you’ll have noticed a trend — he’s been amplifying discussions on Ethereum scalability, especially around zkEVM and L2 evolution. Alongside ZKsync, Starknet and other ZK-native projects are also pushing this acceleration — all pointing in one direction: Ethereum’s ZK era is in full swing.
If all goes as planned, Ethereum’s next major upgrade, Fusaka, will go live on December 3. (Further reading: Deconstructing Ethereum's Fusaka Upgrade: The Scaling Evolution Behind 12 EIPs). Fusaka is expected to be the most impactful upgrade since The Merge and Dencun, with one core goal: making L2s cheaper, faster, and more open.
It introduces PeerDAS (Peer Data Availability Sampling) to boost data throughput for Rollups, and adds a new blob-only parameter path that restructures bandwidth, storage, and data-write processes — optimizing mainnet resource use.
Impact by participant:
- Rollup developers: Lower data costs & more flexible L1/L2 interactions
- Wallets / infra providers: Stronger node environments for complex loads
- End users: Cheaper transactions, faster responses
- Enterprises / regulated users: Simpler EVM extensions & state proofs for easier compliance integration
When zkEVM and Fusaka both land, the Rollup ecosystem may enter its first phase of true scale. Looking back — The Merge upgraded consensus, Dencun introduced data layering, and now Fusaka and zkEVM push scalability and verification forward.
Ethereum’s central question has never changed: How to balance decentralization and scalability?
Today, that answer seems to be emerging — in the mathematical light of ZK proofs.