According to Buterin, modexp can be “50x worse than average blocks” for ZK-EVM proving. This is confirmation that the inefficiency is now too big to ignore.
In his own words, he even said he “bows his head in shame” for inventing it.
Source: X
The community response was simple – This is a waste of engineering time, and fixing modexp matters more than squeezing tiny efficiency gains elsewhere.
As one user put it,
“Makes sense. The opportunity cost of optimizing obscure opcodes is huge compared to improving core scalability layers.”
This matters because if ZK-proving stays slow, ETH scaling stalls.
And, that risk is suddenly front and center.
To make matters worse…
Yesterday alone, ETH ETFs saw $135.7 million in outflows, with BlackRock dumping $81.7 million on its own. That’s institutional capital actively reducing exposure.
Source: X
And, the scale matters here – This is one of ETH’s sharpest single-day outflow clusters since launch. If big allocators continue to pull liquidity at this pace, Ethereum will struggle to find a floor.
This turns the modexp debate into a capital flight problem.
ETH breaks below key structure
At press time, Ethereum’s price was trading near $3,480 after a heavy two-day sell-off candle cluster that erased most of last week’s bounce.
The RSI suggested that momentum has been weak, but not yet fully oversold. The OBV continued to slide lower too. So, volume has been flowing out, not in.
Source: TradingView
Structurally, this means ETH has failed to defend its short-term support.
Unless demand returns quickly, there’s a clear risk of a deeper fall (potentially toward the $3.3K-$3.35K pocket), before any real upside attempt could form.