The ZKsync team plans to act tougher and more actively in 2026, focusing on real use cases for scaling Ethereum. The team intends to build on the foundation laid last year and go beyond purely cryptocurrency cases.
On Monday, co-founder and CEO of Matter Labs Alex Glukhovsky published a roadmap on X, centered on institutional adoption. The document is built around four principles that he calls inviolable for ZKsync products: privacy by default, deterministic control, verifiable risk management, and native connection to global markets.
“We consciously decided to build infrastructure with real-world constraints in mind, rather than following industry simplifications. These very constraints form the foundation of financial infrastructure, where trust relies on cryptography, not on people or intermediaries,” Glukhovsky wrote.
One of the key elements of the 2026 roadmap will be the development of Prividium. This blockchain is privacy-oriented and should become a full-fledged tool for banks, asset managers, and other companies that want to embed data protection directly into their processes and systems.
Glukhovsky calls Prividium one of the main entry points for institutional players. The platform is initially designed so that its integration feels natural and familiar to them. It should enhance privacy in access management, transaction approval processes, reporting, auditing, as well as when connecting to existing financial and operational software.
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The ZK Stack toolkit, based on zero-knowledge technologies, is also set for further development. The goal is to turn it into a universal platform for creating specialized blockchains for specific applications. ZK Stack should provide easy access to liquidity, execution, and shared services across different networks. According to Glukhovsky, this is the most direct path to launching an appchain with less complexity and higher compatibility.
In October last year, ZKsync released the Atlas update for ZK Stack. It accelerated transaction processing and made the infrastructure more flexible for companies and institutional players moving their operations on-chain.
Glukhovsky also noted that the settlement verification engine for ZKsync called Airbender should eventually become a universal standard for virtual machines with zero-knowledge.
“Institutional adoption of crypto has been hampered not only by regulatory uncertainty but also by the lack of necessary infrastructure. Systems could not protect sensitive data, guarantee stable operation during peak loads, or fit real management and compliance requirements,” Glukhovsky said.
According to the CEO of Matter Labs, ZKsync has already removed this barrier thanks to the foundation built on four key principles. As the technology moves toward real-world use, the team plans to focus on deep partnerships with institutional players.
“2026 will be the moment when ZKsync moves from basic deployments to significant scale. We expect that several regulated financial organizations, market infrastructure providers, and major companies will launch working systems based on ZKsync. These solutions will serve not thousands, but tens of millions of users,” Glukhovsky wrote.
