A new approach to scaling? Learn about Pico Prism, the platform Ethereum is promoting.

Brevis has launched Pico Prism, a zero-knowledge proof technology product that enables real-time proofs for Ethereum Layer-1 using consumer-grade hardware. The innovation has garnered strong support from Ethereum officials, including Vitalik Buterin and core developer Justin Drake, who highlight its potential for scaling Ethereum while preserving decentralization.

Key technological breakthroughs and implications include:

  • Real-Time Proof Performance: Pico Prism achieved 99.6% real-time proofs in under 12 seconds for a 45 million gas limit block using 64 RTX 5090 GPUs, demonstrating a 3.4x performance advantage over competitors in speed and cost efficiency.
  • Distributed Architecture: It shifts from single-GPU to a multi-machine, multi-GPU architecture, optimizing computational pipelines for near-linear scalability and peak GPU efficiency.
  • Future Roadmap: Brevis aims to reduce verification costs further, targeting 99% real-time proofs with fewer than 16 GPUs in the coming months.

Significance for Ethereum:

  • Enables lightweight verification, allowing validators to verify proofs in milliseconds instead of re-executing transactions.
  • Supports Ethereum’s scaling roadmap towards 10,000 TPS by leveraging ZK proofs for base-layer transactions.
  • Facilitates mobile node operation, enhancing decentralization by allowing nodes to run on consumer devices like smartphones.

Real-time proving is crucial for Ethereum as it boosts scalability, reduces transaction costs, improves verification speed, and enhances network security without compromising decentralization.

Summary

By Deng Tong, Golden Finance

On October 15, Brevis released the "Pico Prism" technology product, which attracted collective support from Ethereum officials and sparked heated discussions in the community.

On October 16, the official Ethereum account retweeted Brevis’s “Pico Prism” tweet and wrote: “This is a big step towards the future of Ethereum. Zero-knowledge proof technology like Pico Prism will enable Ethereum to scale to meet global demand while still maintaining credibility and decentralization.”

On October 15, Vitalik retweeted and wrote: “Great to see @brevis_zk’s Pico Prism enter the ZK-EVM verification field! A major step forward in ZK-EVM verification speed and diversity.”

Ethereum core developer Justin Drake also joined the call.

What is the origin of Pico Prism that has caused the official Ethereum account to go crazy and call for it?

1. Pico Prism’s Technological Breakthrough

Developed by Brevis, Pico Prism implements real-time proofs (RTP) for Ethereum Layer-1 using consumer-grade hardware equipped with 64 RTX 5090 GPUs. In a test conducted in September, Pico Prism achieved 99.6% real-time proofs in less than 12 seconds.

A blog post published by Brevis describes Pico Prism as follows:

Pico Prism pioneered real-time proof of a 45M gas limit block using affordable consumer-grade hardware. We benchmarked Pico Prism on eight servers, each equipped with eight RTX 5090 GPUs, for a total of 64 GPUs. To compare with SP1 Hypercube, we uniformly sampled 1,000 blocks from the same time period as the Succinct benchmark. For the 45M gas limit block, we benchmarked every block generated on September 1, 2025.

In addition to individual metrics, Pico Prism achieved a 3.4x performance advantage over SP1 in terms of speed and cost efficiency (calculated as average verification time × hardware cost).

Pico Prism uses a consumer-grade RTX 5090 GPU, demonstrating that real-time verification is possible without expensive data center hardware.

Multi-GPU and multi-machine proof

Pico's major breakthrough is the migration from a single-machine, single-GPU prover to a fully distributed multi-machine, multi-GPU architecture. The core of this leap is a complete redesign of the computational pipeline.

Thanks to Pico's modular design, the proof process is broken down into multiple stages, from simulation to hierarchical recursion. Compute-intensive workloads are offloaded to the GPU, while setup tasks remain on the CPU, executed in a highly parallel pipeline that keeps the GPU saturated and operating at peak efficiency. This extreme optimization and parallelization delivers near-linear speedup when scaling across multi-machine, multi-GPU setups. The result is transformative and undeniable: Pico Prism enables true real-time proofs at Ethereum scale using readily accessible, consumer-grade hardware.

Future Plans

With the release of Pico Prism, the path to Ethereum L1 zkVM integration has become clearer. While we are only 2.2% away from our updated goal of sub-10 second real-time verification, we have already begun rolling out some low-hanging fruit to make this goal a breeze.

The next major milestone for Pico Prism is a focus on reducing verification costs. We have a roadmap to achieve 99% real-time verification using fewer than 16 RTX 5090 GPUs in the coming months.

2. Significance for Ethereum

1. Implement lightweight verification

This breakthrough means that computationally expensive proofs can finally keep up with block production using affordable consumer hardware, making lightweight verification practical for the first time. Currently, each validator re-executes every transaction to verify a block, which requires expensive hardware and creates a fundamental bottleneck. But "real-time proofs break this paradigm. One prover generates a proof, and everyone else verifies it within milliseconds."

2. Towards 10,000 TPS

According to the Ethereum roadmap, validators will move from re-executing transactions to simply verifying ZK proofs, allowing the base layer to reach 10,000 transactions per second.

Ryan Sean Adams of Bankless noted: “If scaling continues at a rate of 3x per year, Ethereum L1 will reach 10,000 TPS by April 2029.”

Justin Drake, a Bitcoin security researcher, explained that Ethereum's Fusaka upgrade, expected in December, will simplify real-time proofs. "EIP-7825 limits the gas usage of each transaction, enabling more parallel proofs across sub-blockchains. By the end of the year, several teams will be proving every L1 EVM block on a 16-GPU cluster, using less than 10kW of total power."

3. Nodes can be run on mobile phones

“The future of the phone as a node is about to become a reality,” said Mike Warner, a tech entrepreneur.

Adams noted that Ethereum is transitioning to a zk-chain: Layer 1 will run global DeFi, with large blocks capable of 10,000 transactions per second and nodes that can run on mobile phones, while Layer 2 will run everything else. "No other blockchain follows this strategy—using zero-knowledge proof technology for maximum scalability and decentralization. Bitcoin remains conservative with first-generation cryptography. Ethereum is actively transitioning to second-generation cryptography. Other blockchains use nodes that require data centers to scale."

This is essentially the holy grail of blockchain: achieving massive scalability without sacrificing decentralization or security.

What is real-time proof and why is it important for Ethereum?

Real-time Proving is a new, more efficient technology that allows transactions to be verified by generating a small proof, rather than requiring every node to re-execute all transactions, significantly increasing transaction speed and reducing costs. It is important for Ethereum because it enables massive scalability without sacrificing decentralization, making Ethereum transactions faster, cheaper, and more secure.

  • Significant Scalability: Real-time proofs significantly increase Ethereum’s transaction processing capacity without compromising decentralization.
  • Reduced costs: Since nodes do not need to perform complex calculations, the cost of transactions is significantly reduced.
  • Improved speed: Transaction verification speed is greatly improved, and the user experience will be better.
  • Improved security: By making transaction verification more efficient and secure, real-time proofs help enhance the security of the entire Ethereum network.

“The data speaks for itself,” said Mo Dong, CEO and co-founder of Brevis. “The infrastructure we built is capable of handling the real-world data currently produced on Ethereum. The faster performance brings economic benefits that make real-time proofs practical for production deployments.”

With Pico Prism, the path to Ethereum L1 zkEVM integration is now clearer.

Share to:

Author: 金色财经

This article represents the views of PANews columnist and does not represent PANews' position or legal liability.

The article and opinions do not constitute investment advice

Image source: 金色财经. Please contact the author for removal if there is infringement.

Follow PANews official accounts, navigate bull and bear markets together
App内阅读