Ethereum Foundation Maps Path to zkEVM Proofs on Mainnet L1

The Ethereum Foundation has published a roadmap to get mainchain Ethereum blocks validated using zkEVM proofs, reducing the need for validators to redo each calculation. The proposal, shared on January 15 via

zkEVM on L1 – the planhttps://t.co/KLz7PoH6q9

— Tomasz K. Stańczak (@tkstanczak) January 15, 2026

Ethereum L1 moves towards zk-proof-based validation

Back in July last year, the Ethereum Foundation announced its ‘zk-first’ approach. Today, Ethereum validators typically check a block by redoing the transactions and comparing the results. The plan proposes an alternative: validators could verify a cryptographic proof that the block execution was correct.

The document summarizes the intended pipeline in clear terms: an execution client produces a compact “witness” packet for a block, a standardized zkEVM program uses that packet to generate a proof of correct execution, and consensus clients verify that proof during block validation.

The first milestone is to create an ‘ExecutionWitness’, a per-block data structure that contains the information needed to validate the execution without re-executing it. The plan requires a formal witness format in Ethereum’s execution specs, conformance testing, and a standardized RPC endpoint. It is noted that the current debug_executionWitness endpoint is already “used in production by Optimism’s Kona”, while it is suggested that a more zk-friendly endpoint may be needed.

A key dependency is better tracking which parts of the state a block touches, via Block Level Access Lists (BALs). The document says that as of November 2025, this work was not considered urgent enough to be rolled back to previous forks.

The next milestone is a ‘zkEVM guest program’, described as stateless validation logic that checks whether a block produces a valid state transition when combined with its witness. The plan emphasizes reproducible builds and compilations according to standardized goals so that assumptions are explicit and verifiable.

In addition to Ethereum-specific code, the plan aims to standardize the interface between zkVMs and the host program: common goals, common ways to access precompiles and I/O, and agreed-upon assumptions about how programs are loaded and executed.

On the consensus side, the roadmap calls for changes so that consensus customers can accept zk-proofs as part of the beacon block validation, with associated specifications, test vectors, and an internal rollout plan. The document also highlights the availability of the payload at runtime as important, including an approach that “places the block in blobs.”

The proposal treats evidence generation as an operational problem rather than a protocol problem. It includes milestones to integrate zkVMs into EF tooling such as Ethproofs and Ere, test GPU setups (including “zkboost”), and identify reliability and bottlenecks.

Benchmarking is viewed as ongoing work, with explicit goals such as measuring witness generation time, evidence creation and verification time, and the network impact of evidence dissemination. These measurements could contribute to future gas repricing proposals for ZK-heavy workloads.

Security is also identified as perpetual, with plans for formal specifications, monitoring, supply chain controls such as reproducible builds and artifact signing, and a documented trust and threat model. The paper proposes a ‘go/no-go framework’ for deciding when evidence systems are mature enough for wider use.

One external dependency stands out: ePBS, which the document describes as necessary to give provers more time. Without this, the plan says the proofer has “1 to 2 seconds” to make a proof; thus “6–9 seconds.” The document adds a two-sentence box that conveys the urgency: “This is not a project we are working on. However, it is an optimization we need.” It expects ePBS to be deployed in ‘Glamsterdam’ by mid-2026.

If these milestones occur, Ethereum would be moving towards proof-based validation as a practical option at L1, while the timing and operational complexity of proving remain the key factors.

At the time of writing, ETH was trading at $3,300.

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