ZKsync has introduced Airbender Prime, an Ethereum prover that demonstrated real-time proving of mainnet blocks on a single GPU — a milestone that prompted Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin to call for a renewed security focus across zkEVM development.

In testing, one NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell GPU proved 99% of 7,200 consecutive Ethereum mainnet blocks in under 10 seconds each, including witness preparation — the step of assembling the data a prover needs to generate a proof. Every block finished within 12 seconds. Ethereum produces a new block roughly every 12 seconds, so proving each block inside that window is what keeps verification in step with block production. ZKsync announced the milestone in a post on X.

Airbender Prime Demonstrates Real-Time Ethereum Proving

A zkEVM generates a cryptographic proof that a block was executed according to Ethereum's rules, allowing anyone to verify the result without re-running the computation themselves. According to ZKsync, Airbender Prime uses hash-based STARKs, a proof construction designed to deliver post-quantum security. Its technology combines GKR sumcheck, WHIR polynomial commitments, and BLAKE2s hashing.

For Layer 1 proofs, the system will use Keccak-256-based commitments instead of BN254 pairings. It also follows the open RISC-V standard and includes a standalone verifier for independent proof checks.

ZKsync said Airbender Prime leads ETHproofs' public leaderboard — which tracks zkEVM provers against Ethereum mainnet blocks — in reported average proving time, GPU efficiency, and cost. The project also has live configurations running on two and four GPUs.

Vitalik Buterin Calls for Stronger zkEVM Security

Buterin congratulated the ZKsync team on the milestone. He said the battle for proving speed had been definitively won and argued that zkEVM development should now prioritize security.

Buterin identified three requirements for formal verification: proving that the arithmetization matches Ethereum's specification, establishing a hard maximum ratio between proving costs and block gas, and verifying the security of the proof system itself. Arithmetization is the step in which a prover encodes Ethereum's execution rules into the mathematical statements a proof system can check. His comments place attention on whether proving systems can demonstrate correct execution, predictable proving costs, and reliable cryptographic protections.

ZKsync Targets Independently Verifiable Financial Infrastructure

ZKsync said advances in artificial intelligence could accelerate the discovery and exploitation of software vulnerabilities. It argued that institutions need mechanisms that banks and counterparties can verify independently.

Requiring zero-knowledge proofs for ledger updates could prevent compromised execution servers from approving updates that violate encoded rules, according to the company. Airbender Prime's lower hardware requirements could also make proof generation more accessible to institutions and independent operators.

The project aims to support independent verification across financial infrastructure. ZKsync said it plans further announcements about Airbender Prime, without providing additional details in its introduction.