Vitalik Buterin Calls for Clearer Metrics in Cryptography
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin urged developers to use clearer performance metrics for zero-knowledge (ZK) and fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) systems. He suggested measuring overhead as a ratio instead of raw operations per second.
Buterin explained this method better shows how much computational efficiency is lost when switching from trust-based to cryptographic systems. He said on X, “It gives a very informative number: how much efficiency am I sacrificing by making my app cryptographic instead of trust-dependent?”
Understanding FHE and ZK Performance
In response to a question about benchmarking FHE, Buterin clarified that FHE is a single-party process. Only the input and final decryption phases involve external communication, which does not scale with workload size.
He added that using ratios is hardware-independent and helps developers estimate performance easily, since they know how long raw computations take.
The Ethereum Foundation continues to prioritize ZK technology as a key to future scalability. Recently, it released the Kohaku roadmap, focusing on privacy wallets built on ZK-EVM and ZK-VM frameworks.
Ethereum’s Scaling Challenges and Developer Moves
Ethereum currently requires every node to verify every block. Increasing the gas limit could overwhelm nodes, as validators have only 4 to 8 seconds to verify each block produced every 12 seconds. Larger blocks may threaten network stability.
Ethereum developer Dankrad Feist, a key figure behind Danksharding, recently joined Tempo, a new Layer 1 blockchain project backed by Stripe and Paradigm. Feist has worked on improving Ethereum’s transaction capacity.
Buterin’s call for clearer efficiency metrics aims to help developers better understand performance trade-offs. This clarity can support the design of more balanced Ethereum scaling solutions.
