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Ethereum Shifts Focus From Speed to Security With New 2026 Deadline

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The Ethereum Foundation has set a new technical roadmap prioritizing safety over pace for zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machines (zkEVMs), establishing three important milestones stretching via the tip of 2026.

The shift comes after zkEVM groups efficiently diminished proving occasions from 16 minutes to 16 seconds whereas slicing prices by 45 occasions, with 99% of Ethereum blocks now provable in beneath 10 seconds on the right track {hardware}.

Despite these efficiency achievements, the muse warned that safety stays “the elephant within the room,” with many STARK-based zkEVMs counting on unproven mathematical conjectures that latest analysis has begun to disprove.

“If an attacker can forge a proof, they’ll forge something: mint tokens from nothing, rewrite state, steal funds,” the muse said in a December 18 post.

Provable Security Becomes Non-Negotiable Standard

The basis established 128-bit provable safety because the necessary goal for mainnet-grade zkEVMs, aligning with requirements advisable by cryptographic standardization our bodies.

The first milestone requires zkEVM groups to combine their proof system parts with soundcalc, a newly created safety estimation software, by the tip of February 2026.

By May 2026, groups should obtain 100-bit provable safety with remaining proof sizes beneath 600 kilobytes whereas offering compact descriptions of their recursion structure.

The remaining milestone requires 128-bit provable safety, with proof sizes restricted to 300 kilobytes, and formal safety arguments for recursion soundness by year-end 2026.

George Kadianakis from the EF cryptography group emphasised the strategic timing of securing zkEVM architectures earlier than they grow to be shifting targets.

“Once groups have hit these targets and zkVM architectures stabilize, the formal verification work we’ve been investing in can attain its full potential,” he wrote.

Recent cryptographic advances, together with compact polynomial dedication schemes like WHIR, methods reminiscent of JaggedPCS, and well-structured recursion topologies, now make these formidable safety targets achievable.

The basis plans to publish detailed technical posts in January outlining proof system methods for reaching the safety and proof measurement necessities.

Foundation Expands Institutional Adoption Push

While tightening technical requirements, Ethereum has simultaneously accelerated institutional outreach via its new “Ethereum for Institutions” portal launched in October.

The platform guides enterprises and monetary establishments constructing on Ethereum’s infrastructure, highlighting the community’s decade-long reliability with over 1.1 million validators and steady uptime.

The basis emphasised privacy-preserving applied sciences, together with zero-knowledge proofs, absolutely homomorphic encryption, and trusted execution environments, as important for compliant institutional functions.

“Privacy options are now not theoretical — they’re reside and scaling in manufacturing,” the muse famous, pointing to initiatives like Chainlink, RAILGUN, and Aztec Network.

Ethereum presently hosts over 66% of all tokenized real-world property in accordance to RWA.xyz, with main monetary companies together with BlackRock, Securitize, and Ondo Finance deploying tokenized devices.

Ethereum Security 2026 - RWA.xyz RWA League Table
Source: RWA.xyz

JPMorgan Chase recently launched its first tokenized money-market fund on Ethereum, seeding the MONY fund with $100 million and opening it to certified traders with minimal investments of $1 million via its Kinexys Digital Assets platform.

The financial institution’s asset administration head, John Donohue, informed the Wall Street Journal there’s “a large quantity of curiosity from purchasers round tokenization,” including that JPMorgan expects to lead the area with product choices that match conventional money-market funds on the blockchain.

Simplicity Challenge Emerges as Critical Priority

A couple of days in the past, Co-founder Vitalik Buterin identified protocol complexity as a basic menace to Ethereum’s trustlessness in a December 18 assertion.

“An essential and underrated type of trustlessness is rising the quantity of people that can really perceive the entire protocol from high to backside,” Buterin wrote, arguing the ecosystem ought to settle for fewer options if needed to enhance understanding.

The concern resulted from the rising rigidity between superior performance and accessibility as Ethereum’s technical abstractions multiply.

“If solely 5 folks can perceive how your privateness protocol works, you haven’t achieved trustlessness, you’ve simply modified who you belief,” privacy-focused layer-2 community INTMAX said.

The basis acknowledged these challenges in its roadmap, describing Ethereum as “too complicated” for many customers whereas outlining plans for sensible contract wallets that simplify gasoline charges and key administration.

Meanwhile, the muse temporarily paused open grant applications for its Ecosystem Support Program in August, citing plans to shift towards extra focused infrastructure funding after awarding almost $3 million to 105 initiatives in 2024 alone.

The put up Ethereum Shifts Focus From Speed to Security With New 2026 Deadline appeared first on Cryptonews.

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