ZK Industry News: August 14th to 20th, 2025
✨ ZK-Newsflash! ✨
We're bringing you industry highlights each week so you can stay aligned with the latest developments in ZK.
Here's what happened from August 14th-20th, 2025.
A 6x speedup for Jolt, the zkVM from a16z crypto, has been achieved by fully integrating the new Twist and Shout memory-checking arguments
Jolt achieves over 1 million RISC-V cycles/sec on 32-core CPUs and 500,000 on MacBooks, with smaller proofs (~50 KB) and a simpler codebase.
This opens up the possibility of a “streaming prover,” which should make longer programs more provable and more feasible for client-side proving.
1/ Jolt just got a 6× speedup. We now prove over 1,000,000 RISC-V cycles/sec on a 32-core CPU and over 500,000 cycles/sec on a MacBook, with proofs of about 50 KB. Here’s what’s new 🧵
— Justin Thaler (@SuccinctJT) August 14, 2025
ZKM’s Ziren zkVM verifier is now live on Ethproofs, making verification of their L1 EVM proofs possible in your browser
Powered by ZKM’s WASM SDK, it supports STARK, Groth16, and Plonk proofs, enabling fast Ethereum block verification without any dedicated infrastructure, promoting transparent and open verification.
Ziren zkVM verifier is LIVE! 🚀 Following up on last week's in-browser rollout—big thanks to @ProjectZKM for the seamless collab. Special thanks to felicityin! Now you can verify Ziren proofs directly in your browser.
— Ethproofs (@eth_proofs) August 19, 2025
→ Try it: Run a full L1 EVM block proof verification in… https://t.co/IDqYFk95qD
Aragon introduced Private Voting with MACI (Minimum Anti-Collusion Infrastructure)
Aragon and the MACI team from Privacy Stewards of Ethereum are developing a plugin to enable encrypted, verifiable, large-scale private voting onchain.
This innovation protects voter privacy, prevents coercion, and restores trust in governance by keeping votes confidential.
Privacy is normal.
— Aragon.eth 🦅 (@AragonProject) August 20, 2025
In elections. In boardrooms. In governance.
But onchain? It’s been missing.
For the first time, private voting at scale is now possible fully onchain with @PrivacyEthereum, the team building @zkMACI, and Aragon. pic.twitter.com/3UvuyOMowu
Ronin, the home of Axie Infinity, announced its return to Ethereum
Now that Ethereum's scaling technology can meet its needs, Ronin will evolve into an Ethereum-aligned Layer 2 by next year. With 31M wallets and $4.2B in NFT trades, it’s expanding beyond gaming.
As an L2, Ronin will offer faster, cheaper transactions and reward builders through Proof of Distribution.
Ronin is coming home to Ethereum.
— Ronin (@Ronin_Network) August 15, 2025
Ready Layer Two ⚔️
Four years ago, we built Ronin because Axie Infinity needed a faster, more efficient network. Ethereum was still early in its scaling roadmap. Necessity was the mother of our invention.
However, things are different now.… pic.twitter.com/YnQobDvhX3
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