Ethereum Scaling Breakthrough: Pico Prism Paves the Way to 10,000 TPS
Date: 2025-10-16 Author: Oliver Abernathy Categories: CRYPTO PAYMENTS
The Brevis project has unveiled a solution called Pico Prism, based on zkEVM technology, which enables block validation on the Ethereum network to be performed almost instantly using standard gaming graphics cards. In one test, 99.6% of blocks were processed in less than 12 seconds, and the average proof time was 6.9 seconds with a gas limit of 45 million units.
According to Brevis representatives, the new system could increase Ethereum's speed by a factor of 100, and in the future, even smartphones could act as network nodes. Currently, each network validator re-executes all transactions to verify blocks, which requires enormous computing power. Pico Prism eliminates this requirement—now a single node is sufficient to generate a ZK proof, which other participants can verify in a fraction of a second without recalculating.
For testing, Brevis used a cluster of 64 Nvidia RTX 5090 GPUs costing a total of $128,000. This is almost half the price of a similar SP1 Hypercube system from Succinct, which cost $256,000 and was considered the leader in Ethereum block validation. The team aims to achieve similar results soon using just 16 RTX 5090 GPUs.
The Ethereum Foundation described Pico Prism as a "significant step forward" for the entire ecosystem. According to the Foundation, such technologies will help scale the network without sacrificing decentralization and security.
Ethereum's roadmap calls for a gradual transition from transaction replay to ZK proof validation, paving the way to a throughput of 10,000 TPS. Analyst Ryan Sean Adams of Bankless believes that at the current rate of development, a threefold annual performance increase will enable this goal to be achieved by 2029.
The Fusaka upgrade, scheduled for December with the implementation of EIP-7825, is expected to further simplify block verification by setting the gas limit to 30 million per transaction. According to the developers, this will reduce network congestion and increase its resilience.
Adams emphasized that Ethereum is effectively transforming into a next-generation ZK blockchain: the base layer will support global DeFi projects, while the second layer will handle everyday user transactions. He noted that no other network uses ZK technologies so consistently. While Bitcoin remains in the first generation of cryptography, Ethereum is actively implementing the second generation, striving for maximum decentralization and scalability.
Vitalik Buterin previously called the PeerDAS component, included in the Fusaka upgrade, a key element of Ethereum's future scalability.
