Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has introduced GKR—a new cryptographic protocol capable of verifying up to 2 million computations per second on a regular laptop, reducing the amount of proof work on the blockchain by 10 times. The development coincided with the launch of the Privacy Cluster—a group of 47 participants aimed at making privacy the default setting in the Ethereum network.
Breakthrough in blockchain verification
Vitalik published a detailed blog post describing GKR as a method that allows computers to prove the correctness of complex computations without revealing the data. This approach is based on zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP) technology.
Traditional methods require nodes to perform computations that are a hundred times greater than the original task. GKR reduces this figure to 10–15 times, dramatically increasing speed and lowering the cost of transaction verification.
“It’s like checking not every action, but only the input and output data,” Buterin explained. This principle allows skipping intermediate computation steps, saving resources and speeding up processing.
According to him, the system can verify entire Ethereum blocks using just 50 consumer-grade graphics cards, instead of specialized data centers.
How GKR works
Buterin compared the process to a teacher checking homework: instead of verifying every calculation, it’s enough to make sure the key steps are done correctly.
This “checkpoint control” uses mathematical methods to guarantee the correctness of the result without needing to repeat all the work.
GKR is especially effective for repetitive operations with large volumes of data, such as hashing, AI training, or blockchain transaction verification.
In his example, Buterin discusses proofs for the Poseidon2 hash function, which processes data through a series of mathematical transformations. GKR allows verifying the correctness of the result without recalculating every step, but by checking random samples. This approach reduces network load and makes zero-knowledge processes cheaper and more accessible.
Privacy as the new norm
The GKR protocol appeared amid an Ethereum Foundation reform aimed at implementing privacy by default. In September, the organization renamed its research team from Privacy & Scaling Explorations to Privacy Stewards for Ethereum and formed the Privacy Cluster—a group of 47 developers, researchers, and companies.
The cluster is working on five key areas:
- private transactions without surveillance
- secure data verification
- selective user identification
- improving UX for confidential wallets
- creating tools for corporate clients
Vitalik has repeatedly emphasized that without strong privacy, Ethereum risks becoming infrastructure for global surveillance rather than financial freedom. He compares current blockchains to the internet of the 1990s, when encryption was not yet the standard.
Why privacy is critically important
Buterin and other experts believe that full blockchain transparency hinders mass adoption of the technology. According to analyst Petr Golovko from British Gold Trust, current public networks reveal salaries, contracts, and balances, making cryptocurrency “unsuitable for everyday use and impossible for business.”
“Transparency is useful for auditing, but not for life. If your employer, competitor, or a random person can see your account—that’s not freedom, that’s vulnerability,” Golovko said.
He compared the situation to the era before SSL:
“In the 1990s, no one wanted to enter a card number in a browser. Until encryption appeared, the internet wasn’t safe. Today, blockchain is at the same stage—in the pre-SSL era.”
What’s next?
The GKR protocol could become the foundation for a new level of scalability and privacy in Ethereum. If the technology proves effective in real-world conditions, it could lower transaction costs and make the network faster without sacrificing decentralization.
At the same time, the development of the Privacy Cluster and the transition to default private wallets could change the very philosophy of Ethereum, making it not just “the second layer of the internet of money,” but a space where data belongs to users, not observers.
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