On the tenth anniversary of the first block generation on July 30, 2015, Ethereum's roadmap has taken a new direction and goal: to go all out to zero-knowledge proofs (ZK). Eventually, it plans to migrate to using zero-knowledge proofs at all levels of the stack, from consensus layer signature aggregation to on-chain privacy protection based on client proofs, and upgrade the protocol to a more concise and zero-knowledge proof level. Ethereum chose the ZK route because it may be the most suitable blockchain impossible triangle solution for Ethereum. The blockchain impossible triangle refers to the inability to achieve decentralisation, security, and scalability (performance) at the same time, necessarily at the expense of one thing. Ethereum chooses decentralisation + security at the expense of scalability (performance). Decentralization: Ethereum can run on Raspberry Pi-level hardware, with approximately 15,000 nodes and 1 million validators, making it the most thoroughly decentralised blockchain outside of BTC. Security: Since its launch in 2015, Ethereum has undergone several upgrades and technical adjustments, but overall it has been operating securely for a decade without large-scale issues or failures affecting the entire network. Scalability (performance): Ethereum's TPS is only 18-20, and its low performance cannot meet demand, which is why L2 rollups have risen in 2020. Now, ZK may be the way to solve the impossible triangle of blockchain. Because ZK proofs allow transactions to be executed in batches off-chain and then validated on-chain (without the need for a complete re-execution), they can also be scaled without increasing verification complexity. In other words, performance can be improved without sacrificing Ethereum's existing decentralisation and security. And with continuous improvements in zero-knowledge proof latency and cost, higher throughput can be handled. Eventually achieved 10,000 TPS on Ethereum L1. In a word, it can be summed up as follows: maximise scalability while maintaining maximum decentralisation. The core premise of increasing Ethereum's TPS to 10,000 is to achieve "ZK real-time proof". What is ZK Real-Time Proof? Currently, Ethereum generates a block every 12 seconds, and 32 blocks form an epoch, requiring about 2 epoch confirmation blocks. With zk-proof validation, the confirmation time is reduced to block generation time (within 12 seconds). There is no need to wait for instant confirmation from 2 epochs, i.e. "real-time proof". In other words, your transaction in this block will be verified in the next block. The current leader in ZK real-time proofs is @SuccinctLabs. Currently, Succinct's SP1 Hypercube zkVM has achieved 93% validation of 10,000 gas Ethereum blocks in 12 seconds on a 200-GPU cluster, and is expected to achieve a 99% validation rate (i.e., real-time proofs) by the end of the year. Succinct's decentralised proof network has hundreds of independent proof nodes that compete to generate valid proofs and bid on validators to collect fees. This competition reduces proof costs, increases validator/staker yields, and decentralises proof production. Verify adoption at scale Succinct has now gained ZK proof adoption from 35+ projects, such as: Polygon uses Succinct to build AggLayer, Cosmos, Celestia, and Avail Polygon uses Succinct to secure their bridge to Ethereum, Mantle (total locked value of $2 billion+) Polygon uses Succinct to become the world's largest zero-knowledge proof (ZK) L2 network. and many other well-known partners: Phala, Lido, Galxe, Alpen, Automata, Morph, Nebra, Nitro, Rift, Scalerize, Sovereign, Taiko, etc. financing Succinct has raised a total of $55 million through two seed rounds and two Series A rounds, with investors including not only well-known VC institutions such as Paradigm, Robot Ventures, Bankless Ventures, and Standard Crypto, but also star angel investors such as Sreeram Kannan (founder of Eigenlayer) and Sandeep Nailwal (co-founder of Polygon).