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Ethproofs — Product Requirements Document (PRD)

Purpose of this Document

This Product Requirements Document (PRD) defines the vision, features, and success metrics for Ethproofs — a public-good platform to track and accelerate progress in zk proving for Ethereum.

The PRD serves five purposes:

  1. Clarify Vision — align stakeholders on Ethproofs’ goals and scope.
  2. Define Requirements — outline user needs, features, and technical specifications.
  3. Guide Development — provide the basis for roadmap planning.
  4. Set Success Criteria — establish measurable outcomes for evaluation.
  5. Facilitate Communication — ensure all stakeholders understand priorities and expectations.

Roadmap Phases

phase 0
early adopters		 phase 1
delayed proving		 phase 2
mandatory proofs		 phase 3
enshrined proofs
timeline 2025 2026 2027 2028
proving altruistic altruistic rational rational

Ethproofs is currently in pre-Phase 0, before reliable altruistic proving is established.

1. Overview

Ethproofs is a neutral, research-driven platform that tracks, benchmarks, and validates zk proofs for Ethereum’s Layer 1 (L1). It provides a dashboard, proof explorer, and open data schemas to support the community’s journey from pre-Phase 0 through enshrined zk-proofs.

Ethproofs’ role

  • Enable client-side verification today.
  • Support the race for real-time proving of execution blocks.
  • Support the evolution toward future proving across consensus, data, and privacy layers as needed.

North-star targets

  • ≤ 10s proving latency (P99 of mainnet blocks).
  • ≤ $100k opex per L1 EL proving cluster.
  • ≤ 10kW power per L1 EL proving cluster.
  • ≥ 128-bit security profile.
  • ≤ 300KiB proof size, no trusted setup.
  • Fully open-sourced and formally verified code.

1.1 Current Traction

  • Ecosystem adoption: 6 zkVMs and 9 provers onboarded (+4 in progress).
  • Proof volume: 100k+ Ethereum blocks proved.
  • Verification: in-browser verification live for 2 zkVMs (expanding to 4).
  • Automation: status bots enforce accountability for missed proofs.
  • Performance gains: 5× latency reduction and 15× cost reduction in the past year.
  • Community: active researcher & developer feedback loops.

1.2 Next Steps

  • Robust Documentation — comprehensive definitions and metrics.
  • Structured Onboarding — detailed, auditable data for zkVMs, proof systems, and provers.
  • Contributor Guardrails — 100 consecutive verified proofs required in staging before production access.

1.3 Target Users

  • Provers — benchmark performance, submit proofs, and compete transparently.
  • zkVM Developers — showcase readiness for real-time proving.
  • Researchers & Community — monitor ecosystem progress via neutral data.
  • Ethereum Foundation Teams — use Ethproofs benchmarks for L1 security studies and incentive design.

2. Product & UI Principles

Ethproofs emphasizes neutrality, verifiability, and accessibility.

Core Principles

  • North Star First — highlight progress toward real-time proving.
  • Phase-Aware Growth — anticipate evolution from altruistic to rational incentives.
  • Credibility with Guardrails — explicit contributor expectations and visible audit states.
  • Verified vs Reported — clear separation of verifiable and self-reported data.
  • Minimalist UI — standardized shadcn/ui components, data-first design.
  • Modular & Scalable — support new metrics and entities over time.

Key UI Elements

  • Persistent Navigation — sidebar for global sections; right-hand docs drawer for inline definitions and provenance.
  • Interactive Tables — clustering, filtering, row comparison, CSV export.
  • Consistent Interaction Patterns — provenance surfaced at point-of-use; filters and comparison tools uniform across all data types.
  • Branding — minimal and data-first (Lock Sans fonts, Tailwind zinc grayscale, green accents).
  • Responsive Behavior — clean layouts across desktop and mobile.

3. Verification & QA

Ethproofs enforces credibility through strict verification guardrails:

  • In-Browser Verification — WASM verifiers required for all proof submissions.
  • Open Source Status — provers/zkVMs tagged for verifier, CPU prover, GPU prover.
  • Attribution & Provenance — every claim linked to papers, PRs, repos, or commits.
  • Audit Workflow — automated checks + manual review; clear contributor states:
    • Under Audit — default for new/updated data.
    • Audited by Ethproofs — confirmed and verified.
  • Staging Milestones — 100 consecutive clean proofs before production listing.

4. Technical Notes

Ethproofs’ stack is optimized for speed, reproducibility, and low maintenance:

  • Framework: Next.js (App Router + TypeScript).
  • UI: shadcn/ui with Tailwind CSS (minimal overrides).
  • Charts: Recharts for proving metrics visualization.
  • State & Data: API-driven, lightweight client-side state, public endpoints for proofs/zkVMs/provers/blocks.
  • Engineering Principles:
    • Minimal styling customizations.
    • Uniform interaction models.
    • Extensible schemas for evolving metrics.

5. Success Metrics

Success is measured by researcher trust and ecosystem adoption, not design polish.

Usability

  • ≤ 5s to locate proof details.
  • ≥ 70% provers onboard without admin help.
  • ≥ 80% of metrics with inline definitions.

Reliability

  • ≥ 95% uptime for proof ingestion & bots.
  • ≤ 10s delay for proof submission updates.
  • CSV exports always reflect filters/sorting.

Credibility

  • 100% of production proofs have in-browser verification.
  • All unverifiable claims flagged as “Reported.”
  • All active zkVMs/provers display audit states.

Adoption & Impact

  • ≥ 3 EF research teams reference Ethproofs annually.
  • ≥ 5 external teams integrate Ethproofs API.
  • Continuous quarter-over-quarter contributor growth.

6. Long-Term Vision

Ethproofs’ initial focus is real-time proving of execution blocks (leanExecution). Long-term, it will expand to support:

  • leanExecution — SNARK-friendly ISA (e.g., RISC-V).
  • leanConsensus (“Beacon Chain 2.0”) — post-quantum secure consensus with SNARKified attestations.
  • leanData (“Blobs 2.0”) — post-quantum secure data availability with aggregatable hash-based proofs.
  • Client-Side Proving — enabling end users to generate and verify proofs locally, fostering decentralization, improving resilience, and reducing reliance on centralized infrastructure.
  • Privacy Proving — transparency and auditability for user-facing privacy systems.

Outcome: Ethproofs becomes the benchmarking and credibility hub for zk proving across execution, consensus, data, client-side proving, and privacy — accelerating Ethereum’s path to decentralization and scalability.

This PRD is a living document. Contributions, feedback, and corrections are welcome via issues and PRs.