Crypto offers a new primitive for use beyond blockchains

Published 2025-12-09

In 2026, zkVM provers will hit roughly 10,000X overhead with memory footprints in the hundreds of megabytes — fast enough to run on phones, cheap enough to run everywhere.

Source

Verdict

openFewer than two later editions exist yet (D33).

A trend is graded on whether the publisher keeps it, never as a hit or a miss (D6, D33).

All captured fields

rank: 40
section: Crypto
subject: zkVM provers (verifiable computation)
target year: 2026
metric: zkVM prover overhead
value: 10000
unit: x (roughly)
author: Justin Thaler
team: Crypto
confidence: high
note: Same quote states memory footprints in the hundreds of megabytes.