Vitalik Buterin Proposes New Efficiency Metric for ZK and FHE

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin urged on October 18 for developers to provide ratio-based benchmarks over throughput numbers for zero-knowledge (ZK) and fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) technologies.

This push for transparency aims to enhance efficiency standards, impacting Ethereum’s ecosystem by potentially improving privacy, scalability solutions, and enabling better cost modeling across related projects.

Buterin Advocates for Time Ratio in Cryptographic Efficiency

Vitalik Buterin’s call for a ratio-based efficiency metric targets the cryptographic operations overhead calculation by developers working on zero-knowledge (ZK) and fully homomorphic encryption (FHE). Instead of relying on throughput figures, Buterin recommends a time ratio for encryption operations against original computations, aiming to provide a clearer standard.

Implementing this ratio-based approach could standardize reporting across developers, resulting in more transparency for projects evaluating cryptographic versus trust-based methods. Cryptographic projects’ efficiency and economic feasibility may gain from these insights, potentially leading to wider adoption.

Market reactions to Buterin’s proposal have been notable, with industry participants beginning to consider this benchmarking method. Some sectors within the crypto community, especially those involved in privacy-centric projects, might be more inclined toward these changes as highlighted by expert discussions in the field.

Historical Shifts and Current Market Statistics

Did you know? Benchmarking shifts like Vitalik’s proposed ratios have historically clarified on-chain decision-making, reminiscent of past changes in gas efficiency and rollup cost assessments, ultimately boosting developer transparency.

Ethereum (ETH) currently holds a market cap of $466,627,612,555 with a trading price of $3,866.06. Data from CoinMarketCap reflects a 24-hour trading volume of $55,808,029,255. Over the past 90 days, ETH’s price has changed by 5.94%, as last recorded at 05:55 UTC on October 18, 2025.

Insights from the Coincu research team suggest that adopting such ratio-centric efficiency metrics could enhance the economic competitiveness of Ethereum projects. The broader community may benefit from enhanced hardware independence and benchmarking accuracy, promoting integrative growth within the ZK and FHE landscapes.

“This is more hardware-independent and gives a very indicative number: how much efficiency will I lose if my application adopts a cryptographic approach instead of a trust-reliant approach?… The overhead factor is still a good number.” — Vitalik Buterin, Co-founder, Ethereum