Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has put a 60% probability on three advanced cryptographic technologies — SNARKs, fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) and indistinguishability obfuscation (iO) — eventually reaching a computational overhead of less than 10x. Buterin said the first of these technologies to reach that threshold is likely to be SNARKs, with the milestone potentially arriving by the end of the decade. The comments were reported by Cointelegraph in a post on X.

The estimate points to a long-term efficiency target for cryptographic techniques that are already used, or being researched, for applications involving privacy, verification and computation. SNARKs are already deployed in production blockchain systems, while FHE and iO remain largely in the research phase, which is relevant context for why Buterin expects SNARKs to cross the threshold first.

SNARKs Could Reach the Threshold First

Among the three technologies, Buterin expects SNARKs to be the first to achieve an overhead of less than 10x, although he did not provide a specific year for that development.

SNARKs, or succinct non-interactive arguments of knowledge, allow one party to prove that a computation was performed correctly without requiring another party to independently reproduce the entire computation. The technology has become an important component of zero-knowledge systems used across the blockchain industry, including zk-rollups that batch transactions off-chain and post verified results to Ethereum.

The significance of the efficiency threshold lies in the computational cost associated with cryptographic proofs. Lower overhead can make advanced verification techniques more practical for applications where computing resources and processing time are constraints. Today, generating proofs is typically far more expensive than running the underlying computation directly, which is one reason these techniques are not yet used everywhere they could be.

FHE and iO Remain Part of Longer-Term Outlook

Buterin also included fully homomorphic encryption and indistinguishability obfuscation in his assessment.

FHE allows computations to be performed on encrypted data without first decrypting it. This makes it a key area of research for applications that require computation while keeping the underlying information confidential, such as privacy-preserving data processing. FHE was first proposed in the late 2000s, and reducing its overhead has been a central challenge in the field since.

Indistinguishability obfuscation is a more advanced cryptographic technique designed to make it difficult to determine how an obfuscated program works while preserving its functionality. It has been studied as a potential foundation for a range of privacy and cryptographic applications, though practical constructions are generally considered much further away than SNARKs or FHE.

Buterin's 60% estimate applies to the possibility that all three technologies can eventually reach the under-10x overhead threshold. His statement does not establish that the milestone will be achieved, nor does it provide a guaranteed timetable for FHE or iO.

End-of-Decade Target

The only specific timing mentioned in the statement concerns the first technology expected to reach the threshold. Buterin said that this is likely to be SNARKs and that it could happen by the end of the decade.

The estimate places efficiency, rather than the introduction of the underlying cryptographic techniques, at the center of the prediction. SNARKs, FHE and iO are already established areas of cryptographic research, but achieving substantially lower computational overhead remains an important technical challenge. Progress in proof systems in recent years, including the development of newer SNARK constructions, has steadily reduced overhead, which is the trend Buterin's estimate speaks to.

For now, Buterin's assessment sets out a probability rather than a confirmed development. The key milestone identified in his statement is whether SNARKs can reach less than 10x overhead by the end of the decade.