The Ethereum Foundation is shifting its focus to security, not speed – setting a strict 128-bit rule for 2026.

The Ethereum Foundation (EF) declared victory on December 18: real-time proof-of-concept works. Performance bottlenecks have been removed. Now the real work begins, because speed without stability is a disadvantage, not an advantage, and the math of many STARK-based zkEVMs has been quietly breaking down for months. In July, EF set a formal goal for "real-time proof" that brings together latency, hardware, energy, openness, and security: prove at least 99% of mainnet blocks within 10 seconds, on hardware costing roughly $100,000 and running within 10 kilowatts, with fully open source, 128-bit security, and a proof size of 300 kilobytes or less. The December 18th announcement claims that the ecosystem has met the performance target as measured by the EthProofs performance measurement page.