Ziren: What’s new?

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zkMIPS 1.0 introduced a performant, auditable zkVM with leading CPU-based benchmarks. But proving on CPU alone is not enough. Scaling real-world ZK applications requires more than raw throughput - it demands accelerated proving, distributed systems, and a clean developer experience.

Enter Ziren - the next major release of ZKM's zkVM, formerly known as zkMIPS. This rebrand and upgrade mark the transition from years of building, testing, and optimizing, to a fully scalable, production-ready, and developer-friendly ZK proving infrastructure.

Ziren = zkMIPS v1.1.0 with GPU + Network Prover

This is the update developers have been waiting for:

  • 30× GPU acceleration
  • Networked prover support for parallelized proving
  • Major constraint optimizations
  • Toolchain and precompile upgrades
  • Critical bug fixes and audit improvements

With these advancements, Ziren launches as a truly production-ready proving system - capable of supporting blockchain-integrated use cases at scale.

GPU Acceleration

The core proving pipeline is now GPU-accelerated, resulting in massive speedups:

  • Core proof generation is up to 30× faster
  • Aggregation proofs up to 15× faster
  • bn254 wrap proofs also up to 30× faster

This reduces latency across all proving stages, bringing Ziren performance closer to real-time and enabling high-frequency applications.

Distributed Network Prover

Ziren introduces the Network Prover:

  • Distributes proof workloads across a network of nodes
  • Parallelizes computation for major scalability gains
  • Enhances reliability through decentralized availability

This upgrade allows Ziren to be deployed as a distributed proving service, aligned with modular blockchain and rollup architectures.

Constraint System Optimization

Significant efficiency upgrades have been made across the constraint system:

  • Instruction constraints split into modular Chips (CPU, branch/jump/memory)
  • Reduced column usage through optimized data structures
  • Removed redundant or unused constraints
  • Improved ALU, MADDU/MSUBU, and branch handling with streamlined operations

These improvements reduce proof complexity and boost proving speed and reliability. The dense opcodes of MIPS32r2 mean smaller circuits, fewer constraints, and ultimately faster proofs.

From the standpoint of building the zkVM, it's the harder path to implement vs using RISC-V, but the optimal one for zero-knowledge applications. With the Ziren release, that payoff becomes tangible.

Tooling and DevX Upgrades

The new toolchain version (20250522) improves the developer experience:

  • LLVM patch integration for optimized compilation
  • teq instruction fixes
  • Static library support in C/C++ builds
  • Rust toolchain improvements, removing cargo hacks
  • Support for Golang coming soon

With the release of Ziren, developers can now compile and verify applications with higher performance and better ecosystem compatibility.

Precompile and ZK Integration Enhancements

  • Full ECDSA support for elliptic curve signatures
  • Ethereum-native compatibility for signature verification

These upgrades optimize Ziren integration into blockchain systems and broaden supported use cases.

Stability and Security Fixes

  • Critical FRI randomness bug fixed in Plonky3
  • Corrected vk_root verification in Rust verifier
  • Instruction execution and constraint fixes
  • Improved shard logic and program counter handling

All changes contribute to a more secure and consistent proving environment.

Realtime Proving Nearing

Ziren brings us close to the long-standing goal of real-time ZK proving. Verifiable on ethproofs.org, we doubled the total proof throughput by optimizing both stages of the pipeline: state preparation and proof generation. By switching the guest program from Revm to Reth and applying an in-parallel account state fetching strategy - combined with debug_traceBlock RPC calls - we reduced block state prep time from ~5 minutes to under 30 seconds.

This part of the stack is fully open source, and demonstrates the practical trajectory Ziren is on: from high-performance to low-latency, production-grade proving.

Build With Ziren

Ziren is the result of years of low-level engineering and zero-knowledge research converging into a single, production-ready system. With GPU acceleration, distributed proving, constraint optimizations, and hardened stability, Ziren isn’t just faster - it’s provably better.

For developers building trust-minimized systems that need real performance - whether on Ethereum, Bitcoin (via BitVM2), or across chains - Ziren delivers. Start writing in Rust. Compile to MIPS. Let Ziren handle the rest.

Build with confidence. Deploy without compromise.

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Ziren: What’s new?

zkMIPS 1.0 introduced a performant, auditable zkVM with leading CPU-based benchmarks. But proving on CPU alone is not enough. Scaling real-world ZK applications requires more than raw throughput - it demands accelerated proving, distributed systems, and a clean developer experience.

Enter Ziren - the next major release of ZKM's zkVM, formerly known as zkMIPS. This rebrand and upgrade mark the transition from years of building, testing, and optimizing, to a fully scalable, production-ready, and developer-friendly ZK proving infrastructure.

Ziren = zkMIPS v1.1.0 with GPU + Network Prover

This is the update developers have been waiting for:

  • 30× GPU acceleration
  • Networked prover support for parallelized proving
  • Major constraint optimizations
  • Toolchain and precompile upgrades
  • Critical bug fixes and audit improvements

With these advancements, Ziren launches as a truly production-ready proving system - capable of supporting blockchain-integrated use cases at scale.

GPU Acceleration

The core proving pipeline is now GPU-accelerated, resulting in massive speedups:

  • Core proof generation is up to 30× faster
  • Aggregation proofs up to 15× faster
  • bn254 wrap proofs also up to 30× faster

This reduces latency across all proving stages, bringing Ziren performance closer to real-time and enabling high-frequency applications.

Distributed Network Prover

Ziren introduces the Network Prover:

  • Distributes proof workloads across a network of nodes
  • Parallelizes computation for major scalability gains
  • Enhances reliability through decentralized availability

This upgrade allows Ziren to be deployed as a distributed proving service, aligned with modular blockchain and rollup architectures.

Constraint System Optimization

Significant efficiency upgrades have been made across the constraint system:

  • Instruction constraints split into modular Chips (CPU, branch/jump/memory)
  • Reduced column usage through optimized data structures
  • Removed redundant or unused constraints
  • Improved ALU, MADDU/MSUBU, and branch handling with streamlined operations

These improvements reduce proof complexity and boost proving speed and reliability. The dense opcodes of MIPS32r2 mean smaller circuits, fewer constraints, and ultimately faster proofs.

From the standpoint of building the zkVM, it's the harder path to implement vs using RISC-V, but the optimal one for zero-knowledge applications. With the Ziren release, that payoff becomes tangible.

Tooling and DevX Upgrades

The new toolchain version (20250522) improves the developer experience:

  • LLVM patch integration for optimized compilation
  • teq instruction fixes
  • Static library support in C/C++ builds
  • Rust toolchain improvements, removing cargo hacks
  • Support for Golang coming soon

With the release of Ziren, developers can now compile and verify applications with higher performance and better ecosystem compatibility.

Precompile and ZK Integration Enhancements

  • Full ECDSA support for elliptic curve signatures
  • Ethereum-native compatibility for signature verification

These upgrades optimize Ziren integration into blockchain systems and broaden supported use cases.

Stability and Security Fixes

  • Critical FRI randomness bug fixed in Plonky3
  • Corrected vk_root verification in Rust verifier
  • Instruction execution and constraint fixes
  • Improved shard logic and program counter handling

All changes contribute to a more secure and consistent proving environment.

Realtime Proving Nearing

Ziren brings us close to the long-standing goal of real-time ZK proving. Verifiable on ethproofs.org, we doubled the total proof throughput by optimizing both stages of the pipeline: state preparation and proof generation. By switching the guest program from Revm to Reth and applying an in-parallel account state fetching strategy - combined with debug_traceBlock RPC calls - we reduced block state prep time from ~5 minutes to under 30 seconds.

This part of the stack is fully open source, and demonstrates the practical trajectory Ziren is on: from high-performance to low-latency, production-grade proving.

Build With Ziren

Ziren is the result of years of low-level engineering and zero-knowledge research converging into a single, production-ready system. With GPU acceleration, distributed proving, constraint optimizations, and hardened stability, Ziren isn’t just faster - it’s provably better.

For developers building trust-minimized systems that need real performance - whether on Ethereum, Bitcoin (via BitVM2), or across chains - Ziren delivers. Start writing in Rust. Compile to MIPS. Let Ziren handle the rest.

Build with confidence. Deploy without compromise.