Succinct achieves a breakthrough in zero-knowledge technology: SP1 Hypercube pioneers real-time proof-of-concept for Ethereum blocks using 16 GPUs.

Succinct announced that its SP1 Hypercube zkVM has achieved real-time proof-of-work for Ethereum Layer 1 blocks using 16 GPUs. This breakthrough marks a key step toward the Ethereum Foundation's goal of integrating zkEVM technology into the Ethereum mainnet.

Breakthrough in real-time proof technology

Succinct became the first team to achieve real-time proofs using 16 GPUs, with the latest version, SP1 Hypercube, demonstrating exceptional performance: proving 99.7% of L1 Ethereum blocks in 12 seconds and 95.4% in 10 seconds, running on a cluster of 16 NVIDIA RTX 5090 GPUs. The system was tested and validated on 954 random blocks between block numbers 23807739 and 23812008.

This achievement builds on Succinct's historic milestone in May 2025, when the team became the first to implement Ethereum's real-time proofs, fundamentally changing the L1 roadmap and prompting the Ethereum Foundation to commit to zero-knowledge proofs as its core scaling solution. L1 validators will no longer re-execute blocks; instead, they will verify concise ZK proofs to confirm the correctness of block execution. According to researcher Justin Drake, this approach will allow Ethereum to scale horizontally, potentially unlocking performance of 1 gigabyte of gas per second (approximately 10,000 TPS)—crucial for serving real-world applications.

Leading security

SP1 Hypercube meets the highest industry security standards through several innovations. In collaboration with Nethermind and the Ethereum Foundation, Succinct has formally verified all RISC-V constraints, providing proofs of mathematical correctness, distinguishing SP1 from competitors that rely solely on audits. SP1 Hypercube is the first general-purpose hash-based zkVM to completely eliminate reliance on the proximity gap conjecture—mathematical assumptions recently proven false in their general form. While other zkVMs continue to use these refuted assumptions, Hypercube achieves uncompromising correctness by completely removing this dependency. The platform has protected billions of dollars in total locked value for leading blockchain teams including Polygon, Celestia, Avail, and Mantle.

This milestone represents more than just a technological achievement—it forms the foundation for Ethereum's next stage of evolution, Succinct stated. By combining unprecedented performance with stringent security guarantees, SP1 Hypercube provides the necessary infrastructure for Ethereum to serve real-world use cases at a global scale. SP1 Hypercube's real-time proof capabilities stem from relentless optimization over the past six months of work on the arithmetic layer, GPU provers, executor speed, and cluster orchestration. The newly released SP1-2FA feature adds TEE protection with just one line of code, and combined with rigorous third-party audits and security expert reviews, gives developers the confidence to trust the technology in production environments.