ZKM

May 6, 2025

zkMIPS 1.0 is here - our most significant leap toward real-time proving, following months of careful engineering and system-level breakthroughs.

We’ve been heads-down refining every layer of the stack - now it’s ready: the first production-ready version of our MIPS-based zkVM. This upgrade delivers a 6x-19x performance improvement over zkMIPS 0.3.0 and is a major breakthrough in our attempt to build the most simple, stable, and scalable foundation for real-time verifiable computation.

zkMIPS 1.0 is the result of a full-stack overhaul: new architecture support, optimized proving systems, memory checking mechanisms, chip decomposition, and precompile strategy. Together, these updates make zkMIPS a highly performant proving infrastructure for the next generation of verifiable applications.

Key Upgrades in zkMIPS 1.0

Support for MIPS32r2
We’ve upgraded from MIPS2 to the MIPS32r2 ISA, unlocking access to a broader opcode set (e.g. MADDU) and compiler-level optimizations. This reduces program size, enabling more efficient execution and smaller trace matrices during proof generation.

Powered by Plonky3 and Koala Prime Field
zkMIPS now leverages Plonky3 - an advanced STARK backend using the FRI protocol - and adapts SP1's circuit builder and recursion infrastructure. The KoalaBear 31-bit prime significantly accelerates arithmetic operations compared to the previous 64-bit Goldilocks setup.

Multiset Hashing for Memory Consistency
We’ve replaced Merkle trees with multiset hashing for memory consistency checks. This reduces witness size, minimizes communication overhead, and enables parallel verification.

Area-Minimized Chip Design
zkMIPS partitions circuits into modular ‘chips’ that minimize constraint layout area. This reduces proof generation costs while preserving completeness. Applied across CPU and memory subsystems.

Precompiles for Hot Paths
Heavy operations like Keccak and field arithmetic are abstracted into precompiles, reducing constraint payload and speeding up verification.

Benchmarking the Performance Gains

We benchmarked zkMIPS 1.0 against zkMIPS 0.3.0 using the zkVM-benchmarks suite (https://github.com/zkMIPS/zkvm-benchmarks), running on AWS r6a.8xlarge.

Results below (lower is better):

Across a wide variety of workloads, zkMIPS v1.0 consistently delivers 6x-19x improvements in performance over v0.3.

For a performance comparison with other leading zkVM’s, see: https://docs.zkm.io/introduction/performance.html#performance-of-zkmips

A Developer Toolkit

zkMIPS 1.0 ships with a full toolchain and SDK, including:

A compiler toolchain targeting mipsel-zkm-zkvm-elf
A zkm_sdk Rust crate for local proof generation and verification
Support for Core, Compressed, Groth16, and PLONK proofs
A network prover integration with the ZKM Proof Network
Guest patches and precompile support for common cryptographic libraries

Developers can get started in minutes with:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://raw.githubusercontent.com/zkMIPS/toolchain/refs/heads/main/setup.sh | sh

Ecosystem Readiness

zkMIPS 1.0 is already integrated into the ZKM Proof Network and is live-proving Ethereum mainnet blocks as part of the Ethereum Foundation’s EthProofs initiative.

It's also in production with GOAT Network, a Bitcoin L2 powered by BitVM2 and built entirely on zkMIPS. This demonstrates the first real-world deployment of zkMIPS as a trust-minimized Bitcoin execution environment, with further integrations underway across AI, Optimistic Rollup upgrades, and more.‍

Using zkMIPS 1.0 on the ZKM Proof Network

The same 6x-19x performance improvements achieved in local benchmarks now apply to network proving as well, enabling significantly faster proof generation for supported programs.

zkMIPS 1.0 introduces a new circuit architecture, so verifier keys must be regenerated. Proofs generated with zkMIPS 1.0 are not compatible with previous versions.

All proof types - Groth16, PLONK, and compressed STARKs - are supported with zkMIPS 1.0 on the ZKM Proof Network.

If you are already using the ZKM Project Template (https://github.com/zkMIPS/zkm-project-template), you don’t have to change anything on the prover side to use zkMIPS 1.0. For verification, just regenerate the verification key.

If you're using the local prover, zkMIPS 1.0 support is coming soon. In the meantime, follow this guide to get started: https://docs.zkm.io/dev/prover.html#prover

Make sure to pull the latest zkm_sdk crate (from the main branch) to ensure compatibility with the zkMIPS 1.0 toolchain.

We also provide a set of patched crates to speed up proof generation: https://docs.zkm.io/dev/patched-crates.html

What Comes Next

zkMIPS will continue to evolve. More patches, better cost models, broader precompile support, and deeper integration into rollups and trustless bridges are underway.

We're building toward a unified proving infrastructure - one that can support multiple chains, multiple proof types, and radically improved developer experience.

zkMIPS 1.0 is the milestone that makes that real, but there is much more to come.

Try it. Fork it. Prove it.

Developer Track

With the release of zkMIPS 1.0, we’re entering the final phase of the ZKM Early Contributor Program – focused on developers. If you’ve been waiting for the right moment to start building with zkMIPS, this is it.

Key tasks include building and publishing zkMIPS-powered applications, contributing to the zkMIPS toolchain or example projects, and producing educational content to help onboard others.

This is your chance to help shape the zkVM ecosystem from the ground up – earning ZKM POINTS in the process.

Get started with zkMIPS 1.0: ZKM Docs

Build with zkMIPS 1.0: ZKM Github

Developer Track Submissions: ZKM Developer Track

Contact the ZKM team for support: ZKM Discord

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Hybrid Rollup — A Bird’s Eye View

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zkMIPS 1.0 is here - our most significant leap toward real-time proving, following months of careful engineering and system-level breakthroughs.

Key Upgrades in zkMIPS 1.0

Precompiles for Hot Paths
Heavy operations like Keccak and field arithmetic are abstracted into precompiles, reducing constraint payload and speeding up verification.

Benchmarking the Performance Gains

We benchmarked zkMIPS 1.0 against zkMIPS 0.3.0 using the zkVM-benchmarks suite (https://github.com/zkMIPS/zkvm-benchmarks), running on AWS r6a.8xlarge.

Results below (lower is better):

Across a wide variety of workloads, zkMIPS v1.0 consistently delivers 6x-19x improvements in performance over v0.3.

For a performance comparison with other leading zkVM’s, see: https://docs.zkm.io/introduction/performance.html#performance-of-zkmips

A Developer Toolkit

zkMIPS 1.0 ships with a full toolchain and SDK, including:

A compiler toolchain targeting mipsel-zkm-zkvm-elf
A zkm_sdk Rust crate for local proof generation and verification
Support for Core, Compressed, Groth16, and PLONK proofs
A network prover integration with the ZKM Proof Network
Guest patches and precompile support for common cryptographic libraries

Developers can get started in minutes with:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://raw.githubusercontent.com/zkMIPS/toolchain/refs/heads/main/setup.sh | sh

Ecosystem Readiness

zkMIPS 1.0 is already integrated into the ZKM Proof Network and is live-proving Ethereum mainnet blocks as part of the Ethereum Foundation’s EthProofs initiative.

Using zkMIPS 1.0 on the ZKM Proof Network

The same 6x-19x performance improvements achieved in local benchmarks now apply to network proving as well, enabling significantly faster proof generation for supported programs.

zkMIPS 1.0 introduces a new circuit architecture, so verifier keys must be regenerated. Proofs generated with zkMIPS 1.0 are not compatible with previous versions.

All proof types - Groth16, PLONK, and compressed STARKs - are supported with zkMIPS 1.0 on the ZKM Proof Network.

If you're using the local prover, zkMIPS 1.0 support is coming soon. In the meantime, follow this guide to get started: https://docs.zkm.io/dev/prover.html#prover

Make sure to pull the latest zkm_sdk crate (from the main branch) to ensure compatibility with the zkMIPS 1.0 toolchain.

We also provide a set of patched crates to speed up proof generation: https://docs.zkm.io/dev/patched-crates.html

What Comes Next

zkMIPS will continue to evolve. More patches, better cost models, broader precompile support, and deeper integration into rollups and trustless bridges are underway.

We're building toward a unified proving infrastructure - one that can support multiple chains, multiple proof types, and radically improved developer experience.

zkMIPS 1.0 is the milestone that makes that real, but there is much more to come.

Try it. Fork it. Prove it.

Developer Track

Key tasks include building and publishing zkMIPS-powered applications, contributing to the zkMIPS toolchain or example projects, and producing educational content to help onboard others.

Developer Track Submissions: ZKM Developer Track

Contact the ZKM team for support: ZKM Discord