Brevis: Unlocking the Era of Infinite Blockchain Computing

Title: Brevis: Unlocking the Era of Infinite Blockchain Computation

Author: Rhythm BlockBeats

Source:

Repost: Mars Finance

At Argentina Devconnect in November 2025, Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake demonstrated a different block validation process. His validation node used the zkLighthouse client, relying solely on zero-knowledge proofs from protocols like Brevis’s Pico zkVM to determine block validity. This likely signals the future direction of Ethereum scalability. It proves one thing: blockchains don’t need to execute all computations repeatedly; as long as external proofs can be verified, the system remains secure.

What is Brevis: A verifiable computation layer used by protocols and the Ethereum core

Brevis is not just a specific application but a verifiable computation layer. As an Infinite Compute Layer, it allows complex computations to be performed off-chain, with results brought back on-chain via zero-knowledge proofs, enabling smart contracts to verify them at minimal cost. This is significant because Ethereum’s default security model fundamentally relies on full network recomputation. After receiving a new block, each validation node often needs to rerun all transactions to confirm the execution results are correct. While this guarantees correctness, it also means computational power and resource consumption increase with load. Brevis rewrites this repetitive heavy computation into a single off-chain computation with network-wide verification, generating proofs off-chain, with nodes only needing to verify a small proof on-chain.

Unlike many zk applications focused solely on privacy or scalability, Brevis addresses a fundamental structural issue in Web3. As on-chain computations become more complex and frequent, must every node repeat all calculations to maintain trust? Brevis’s approach is to move computation off-chain, executed by zkVMs that generate proofs, with on-chain contracts only verifying these proofs. This enables contracts to reliably utilize historical data, cross-chain states, or complex algorithm results without introducing additional trust assumptions. The core technologies enabling this are ZK Data Coprocessor, Pico zkVM, and ProverNet.

Breaking the boundaries of smart contracts: The superpower brought by ZK Data Coprocessor

Brevis’s initial breakthrough was the ZK Data Coprocessor. It allows smart contracts to query any on-chain historical data, perform off-chain computations, and generate zero-knowledge proofs, providing trusted inputs to contracts. The ZK Data Coprocessor can query and compute on-chain historical transaction volumes or user behaviors, generating proofs for contract verification. This enables contracts that could only access current block data to also leverage long-term window data and cross-chain states.

After prototyping the Coprocessor in 2023, Brevis iterated continuously, releasing v2 in January 2025 and deploying it on the mainnet. The key improvements in v2 are abstracted into three points: faster (completing tasks with fewer resources and in less time), more versatile (covering a broader range of data and computation needs), and more user-friendly (simplifying processes and encapsulating complexity).

Looking back at Brevis’s technical route before 2025, it was essentially a single main thread: first understanding the performance limits of proof systems, then developing usable off-chain computation and on-chain verification as Coprocessors, continuously engineering and iterating, and exploring more systematic operational models. This also highlights the team’s core strengths—deep knowledge of cryptography and large-scale system engineering—focusing on practical deployment rather than theoretical derivations, identifying industry pain points early, and committing to large-scale adoption of the technology.

When proof capabilities reach the system level: Pico zkVM and ProverNet

By 2025, Brevis had completed two other key components of its triad: a more versatile, production-oriented proof execution engine, Pico zkVM, and an open proof supply network, ProverNet, enabling continuous, scalable proof provision.

Pico zkVM can be understood as Brevis’s general-purpose proof engine. It advances zero-knowledge proofs from specialized circuits and manual adaptations toward a more software engineering approach—developers write logic in familiar ways, and the underlying system transforms it into verifiable proofs. Crucially, Pico was designed from the start with throughput and cost in mind. Under the same benchmarks, Brevis’s comparisons show Pico has clear performance advantages over mainstream zkVMs, and can also efficiently handle specific computation types via pluggable components and co-processors.

In June 2025, Brevis released Pico-GPU, pushing real-time proof generation to a critical inflection point—not just for the protocol but for the entire industry. Pico-GPU systematically offloads proof generation onto GPUs, achieving official claimed speedups of 10–20 times, representing a qualitative leap over previous solutions.

In October, the Pico Prism further lowered the barrier: with 64 consumer-grade GPUs, it proved that Ethereum’s 45M gas block could be proven in 12 seconds with 99.6% success rate, and 96.8% within 10 seconds, with an average proof time of about 6.9 seconds—almost reaching the Ethereum Foundation’s target. The real-time proof generation speed for the first time nearly matches block production speed, and does so with fewer resources compared to competitors.

These advances received direct recognition from the Ethereum core community. Vitalik directly mentioned in a tweet that Pico Prism’s entry into the ZK-EVM proof race is a significant step for proof speed and diversity. Justin Drake previously commented clearly that the progress of Pico Prism is extraordinary—remember, in May this year, SP1 Hypercube required 160 RTX 4090 GPUs to prove about 94% of an L1 block within 12 seconds. Such a leap in real-time proof speed makes Brevis’s Pico Prism the most promising solution.

After developing versatile zkVMs and real-time proof tech, Brevis turned to proof supply. In November 2025, it announced the ProverNet vision—marketizing proof capabilities, allowing any application to submit proof tasks, which are matched with prover nodes via an auction mechanism. The mainnet beta launched in December further matured this into a usable product: the market operates continuously, proof requests can be directly submitted, provers can register and bid for tasks, and applications no longer need to build their own proof infrastructure.

Through these three pillars, Brevis transforms proof capabilities from a tool into a foundational infrastructure—scalable proof engines and an open proof supply network—allowing applications to access verifiable computation on demand. Its significance extends beyond Ethereum—this paradigm of off-chain computation with on-chain verification will ripple across the entire Web3 ecosystem and beyond, into industries like AI and gaming.

Protocols don’t lie: Only what’s used counts

The ultimate value of Brevis’s technology is reflected in real-world applications. It’s not just a concept showcased in promotional materials but integrated into the daily operation of protocols—how data is fetched, metrics calculated, rewards distributed, fee rates adjusted. Tasks that were previously impossible or had to rely on centralized scripts are now taking a more protocolized path. In this process, Brevis has generated over 280 million proofs, distributed more than $230 million in rewards, and securely driven TVL growth of $2.5 billion.

The most straightforward way to understand Brevis is through familiar user interactions like trading. Brevis can enable DEXs to have CEX-like functionalities while ensuring data privacy and authenticity, improving user trading experiences. PancakeSwap Infinity uses hooks to enable tiered fees, where user holdings, trading volume, and other historical behaviors influence fee rates. But these judgments depend on historical data aggregation, which is costly on-chain and trust-dependent off-chain. Brevis’s approach is to perform the historical behavior calculations off-chain, then bring the data back on-chain with proofs, allowing differentiated fee rates to be embedded in contracts—unlike CEXs, which rely on backend scripts.

If PancakeSwap’s approach is more like a CEX’s personalized experience, Usual demonstrates a longer-term growth mechanism—turning one-time airdrops into ongoing CPI-based incentives. Rewards tied to holdings and interactions are long-term, and Brevis makes these metrics verifiable inputs, enabling automated, auditable distributions without community reliance on trust in spreadsheets or centralized issuers. Using Incentra to standardize reward issuance, protocols can distribute LP, lending, or staking rewards based on off-chain metric calculations and on-chain proof verification. For example, Euler’s activities on Arbitrum exemplify this—rewards are not manually tallied and multi-signed but are continuously distributed based on rules and proofs.

When these scenarios scale to the ecosystem level, programs like Linea’s Ignition Program illustrate the point further. The challenge isn’t just issuing incentives but how to do so effectively. Brevis enables large-scale incentive calculations off-chain, bringing trustworthiness back on-chain for verification, shifting from centralized operational actions to reusable system capabilities. Similarly, Uniswap v4’s Routing Rebate Program relies on data, computation, and settlement chains—Brevis handles off-chain computation and proof generation, making rebates based on rules and verification rather than trust in a single statistician.

Connecting these cases, Brevis’s data acquisition, metric calculation, and proof generation allow protocols to write more logic on-chain without sacrificing decentralization. This expands what the entire crypto industry can do and reopens design space.

Who supports long-term technological commitment?

Brevis’s core team comprises top university researchers and frontline system engineers, characterized by their ability to tackle long-term cryptographic and algorithmic challenges while refining complex tech in real production environments—ensuring performance, stability, and cost-effectiveness at scale. More importantly, they are not just tech-focused labs—they understand how the crypto industry operates: the real needs of protocol teams, the pace of ecosystem collaboration, and they possess long-term capital and community engagement, translating engineering plans into ongoing partnerships and developer momentum.

This is evident from the long-term support from capital and community. In November 2024, Brevis completed a seed round led by Polychain and Yzi Labs, providing funding for continued development of zkVMs, proof networks, and product deployment. Meanwhile, its community grew significantly in 2025, with initiatives like Proving Grounds, role systems, and task mechanisms attracting ongoing developer and user participation. Coupled with public endorsements from Vitalik and attention from Justin Drake at the Ethereum Foundation on related progress, these form external endorsements and trust capital for Brevis’s ongoing infrastructure expansion.

From Ethereum to the broader world

Ethereum’s scalability has long been stuck in a structural dilemma: either all nodes perform repeated computations to ensure security and trustlessness, constrained by network-wide recomputation; or outsource computation to improve efficiency but must trust a third party. Brevis offers a third way—offloading complex calculations off-chain, then using proofs to bring trustworthiness back on-chain, shifting from repetitive computation to a division of verification tasks. Its value lies not in a single product but in connecting a comprehensive verifiable computation pipeline.

Brevis is not the only solution to Ethereum’s scalability issues, but it demonstrates the critical value of a verifiable computation layer—decoupling computation from verification, ensuring security and decentralization while alleviating on-chain load. More importantly, the power of an infinite compute layer extends beyond Ethereum. For the entire crypto industry, it means more on-chain applications can achieve near Web2 complexity and user experience without sacrificing security. In the broader traditional world, verifiable compute with a “calculate first, verify later” approach offers a new mode of collaboration—when multiple parties need shared results but cannot share trust, proofs can become a universal language. As open proof networks like ProverNet mature, what Brevis builds will be more than just an enhancement for a single chain; it will be a cross-ecosystem, cross-industry trusted computing supply capable of serving multiple sectors.