Ethereum Foundation research engineer Tau Lepton is testing block proofs on Sepolia that take six to seven seconds, faster than Ethereum’s 12-second interval, while validators still run execution clients.
The OpenVM test distributes 16 RTX 5090 graphics cards between ethrex and reth, assigning eight cards to each execution client. It has generated more than 36,000 proofs. The test measures whether each proof is ready before the next block is produced.
Zero-knowledge cryptography lets validators verify a block by checking its proof instead of executing every transaction again. Its benchmark is whether proofs arrive in less time than Ethereum’s 12-second block interval. Lepton said upcoming runs will vary the prover and client combinations over the next several days to several weeks.
The work remains experimental. Lepton said validators should keep running execution clients and should not yet use the proofs in fork-choice or proof-voting decisions.
