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.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.