ZKsync launched Airbender Prime, a zero-knowledge prover that proved 7,200 Ethereum blocks in under 10 seconds using one GPU. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin called it a decisive milestone and said zkEVM development must now focus on security instead of speed.
What actually happened
ZKsync announced Airbender Prime, its zero-knowledge prover for Ethereum, on 17 October 2026, according to Wu Blockchain. In testing, a single NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell GPU generated proofs for a consecutive batch of 7,200 Ethereum mainnet blocks. 99% of block proofs took less than 10 seconds, and every block finished within 12 seconds, including witness preparation time. The prover runs on the open RISC-V standard and uses hash-based STARK proof technology, built for post-quantum security. It ships with a standalone verifier for independent checks. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin congratulated the Airbender team and said the race over zkEVM proof speed has reached decisive results. He said the priority must now shift fully to security.
How we got here
Zero-knowledge proofs let a rollup prove Ethereum transaction validity without replaying every computation, cutting costs and finality time. For years, zkEVM teams competed mainly on proof speed, since slow proving delayed withdrawals and raised costs. Airbender Prime's results, 99% of blocks proved in under 10 seconds on one consumer-grade GPU, mark one of the fastest public benchmarks for an Ethereum-equivalent prover. Buterin outlined three unresolved tasks for formal verification: confirming the proof system's arithmetic exactly matches Ethereum's protocol rules, setting firm cost limits tied to block gas usage, and verifying the zero-knowledge system itself is sound. This reframes the zkEVM race from a performance contest into a security audit problem.
Why this matters for you
For ZKsync, faster proving could mean cheaper fees and quicker finality for users bridging or trading on its rollup. For other zkEVM teams, Buterin's remarks set a new bar: raw speed no longer wins the argument, formal security guarantees do. Builders working on Ethereum scaling may now prioritize audits and mathematical proofs of correctness over benchmark races. Holders of assets on zk-rollups should watch whether competitors shift resources toward formal verification, since that could slow some roadmaps but reduce the risk of a prover bug causing fund loss. Users ultimately gain from a chain that proves both fast and safe.
The bigger question
If proof speed is no longer the deciding factor, what new standard will separate competing zkEVMs? Formal verification can confirm a system matches its own specification, but it cannot guarantee that specification covers every real-world attack. Who decides when a prover is proven safe enough to secure billions in assets?
What to watch
ZKsync has not published a date for Airbender Prime's mainnet integration. Watch for Ethereum core developers to respond to Buterin's formal verification roadmap in coming weeks. Other zkEVM projects may publish their own benchmark comparisons as the focus shifts to security audits. Bonuz will track how this debate affects proving infrastructure that could eventually support lightweight, always-on devices like smart glasses, which depend on fast, cheap verification at the edge.
