Vitalik: ZK and FHE will reshape the future of blockchain, and Ethereum is moving towards a more efficient and private era

At the 2025 Shanghai International Blockchain Week and the 11th Blockchain Global Summit, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin stated that blockchain and cryptography technologies have made tremendous progress over the past decade, and that the next five to ten years will usher in a phase of "truly usable, scalable, and low-cost." Vitalik noted that new cryptographic techniques such as zero-knowledge proofs (ZK) and homomorphic encryption (FHE) are rapidly maturing, significantly improving computational efficiency and developer experience. He revealed that the Ethereum mainnet can now generate ZK proofs for L1 blocks in real time using approximately 50 GPUs, a feat that two years ago was considered "at least five to ten years away." In the future, ZK will not only contribute to scalability and privacy but also enhance decentralization, as block verification will take "just one millisecond." He further emphasized, "Five years from now, people will no longer be asking why we use ZK, but why not add it." He also proposed a new security concept: "Not your silicon, not your private key," implying that blockchain security is only truly established when hardware, algorithms, and keys are verifiable and user-controlled. Vitalik encouraged developers to actively participate in the entrepreneurship, underlying R&D, and application of ZK and FHE technologies, such as participating in ecosystems like Scroll, Taiko, Lighter, Intmax, and Aztec, as well as new use cases like ZK voting and private identity. He said that the development of blockchain is similar to the popularization of encryption technology in the past—from expensive and complex to ubiquitous and almost cost-free. "When ZK and FHE reach the same level of popularity, the true blockchain revolution will begin."