Ethereum's Last Big Upgrade: The zkEVM | Ansgar Dietrichs

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🗓️ 23 February 2026

⏱️ 81 minutes

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Summary

Ethereum’s next big leap might not look like a single “flip the switch” moment—but it could change how the chain verifies everything. In this episode, Ansgar Dietrichs comes back to unpack the ZK EVM: why “re-executing every block” has been Ethereum’s hidden scaling tax, how real-time proofs finally make a different verification model viable, and what it would take to transition safely without sacrificing the verifiability that keeps Ethereum credibly neutral. They explore the three true bottlenecks of blockchain scaling (compute, IO, bandwidth), the roadmap from optional proofs to mandatory proofs, and why client diversity could look radically different in a ZK-native future. --- 📣SPOTIFY PREMIUM RSS FEED | USE CODE: SPOTIFY24 https://bankless.cc/spotify-premium --- BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🔮POLYMARKET | #1 PREDICTION MARKET https://bankless.cc/polymarket-podcast 🪐GALAXY | INSTITUTIONAL DIGITAL FINANCE https://bankless.cc/galaxy-podcast ⚡ EUPHORIA | REAL-TIME ONE-TAP TRADING https://bankless.cc/euphoria 🌐BRIX | EMERGING MARKET YIELD https://bankless.cc/brix 🏅BITGET TRADFI | TRADE GOLD WITH USDT https://bankless.cc/bitget 🎯THE DEFI REPORT | ONCHAIN INSIGHTS https://bankless.cc/TDRpro --- TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Intro 0:43 Ethereum’s Biggest Upgrade 4:35 The Core Idea: Verify Blocks Without Re-Executing 10:40 From Bitcoin’s “Verify Cheaply” to Verifying Full Execution 16:22 Cryptography 2.0: Proving Arbitrary Computation 22:56 Scaling All 3 Constraints: Compute, IO, Bandwidth 32:33 Why Ethereum Has Been “Slow” by Design 38:29 3× Per Year: Scaling Now, Not Someday 41:28 ZK Isn’t About Faster Blocks (But Speed Still Improves) 46:33 Rollout Plan: Optional Proofs → Mandatory Proofs 49:59 Dependencies: Block-in-Blobs, Repricing, New State Trees 54:14 Security Reality Check: Performance → Security → Production 1:01:24 Client Diversity in a ZK World 1:10:51 Timeline: ZK Ethereum, Around 2030 1:16:31 Second-Order Wins: L2 Bridging and Beyond Crypto 1:20:49 Closing: Build the Boring Infrastructure, Enable the Apps --- RESOURCES Ansgar Dietrichs https://x.com/adietrichs --- Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures

Transcript

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0:00.0	ZKVM is this fundamental insight that what you can do is you can basically allow nodes to verify
0:07.2	that a block followed all the rules without having to re-execute the block. It's a very non-intuitive
0:14.7	thing, right? A blockchain by its nature is a very symmetrical thing. Every node basically does
0:18.9	the same thing. Of course, you have block producers, but then every node kind of has to download, re-execute, you're duplicating the effort across the network.
0:26.4	And now you're jumping to this like, through this very fancy cryptography. You're jumping
0:31.1	to this world where you still have the same effort to build a block, but then verification
0:35.2	in a way is effortless. It has this magical compression element to it.
0:42.9	Bankless Nation, I'm here with Onzgar at Dietrichs.
0:45.0	He's a researcher at the Ethereum Foundation.
0:46.9	We're going to talk about the ZK EVM today on the show.
0:49.7	Onsgar, welcome to Bankless.
0:50.9	Hey, great to be here again.
0:53.1	Pretty ambitious subject, Ansgar.
0:55.8	Ethereum has had this history of very big forks, hard forks that have upgraded Ethereum
1:01.3	from this early primitive proof of concept where it started in 2015 to what it is today,
1:06.4	which is fundamental infrastructure, the backbone of internet money and internet finance. We had the
1:12.1	merge, which did proof of work to proof of stake. We had EIP-1559 that upgraded ether
1:16.8	economics and transaction user experience. There's also 4844, which just enabled Ethereum's
1:23.0	roll-up environment to become its best self. With each of these forks, they all represented this rallying
1:30.0	cry for the Ethereum community. They were this kind of grand unifying force of attention by
1:35.9	the Ethereum community, and it allowed Ethereum itself to command attention from the rest of the
1:41.1	world. The rest of the world paid attention to Ethereum when Ethereum had these forks, these incoming forks. The Ethereum was just loud. And I think in these
	...

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