According to Howard Wu (@1HowardWu), their consensus mechanism is designed to incentivize hardware acceleration for zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs, aligning network participation with proof-generation performance (source: @1HowardWu on X, Sep 2, 2025). According to the source, he compares this to Intel adding cryptographic units to CPUs for HTTPS and states dedicated hardware is required to make ZK practical at scale (source: @1HowardWu on X, Sep 2, 2025). According to the source, this design links validator or miner competitiveness to specialized ZK accelerators, making hardware efficiency a primary lever for operators in ZK-focused networks (source: @1HowardWu on X, Sep 2, 2025).

According to Cas Abbé on Twitter, Ethereum's Pectra upgrade is now live on mainnet, marking the largest update since The Merge. This upgrade introduces active smart account wallet UX features, doubles L2 scaling data storage blobs, and brings live validator UX improvements. These enhancements are expected to increase Ethereum's throughput and efficiency, potentially driving higher on-chain activity and impacting ETH price action as traders anticipate improved Layer 2 adoption and network utility (source: @cas_abbe, May 7, 2025).