TPS measures throughput, not cost. A chain advertising 100k TPS often achieves it by batching cheap signature verifications, ignoring the cost of executing complex logic like an Uniswap swap or an ERC-20 transfer. The real metric is cost-per-unit-of-computation.
the-modular-blockchain-thesis-explained
Blog
Why 'Proof-of-Validity' Will Become a Standard Metric
TPS is a meaningless vanity metric that fails to capture real-world performance. In a modular stack, the true measure of scalability is the cost and latency of generating cryptographic proofs of validity. This shift will redefine how we evaluate layer 2s, app-chains, and the entire prover market.
introduction
THE METRIC
TPS is a Lie
Transactions-per-second is a flawed vanity metric that obscures the true cost and capacity of a blockchain.
Proof-of-Validity is the standard. Protocols like Arbitrum and zkSync don't publish raw TPS; they publish proof generation times and verification gas costs on Ethereum. The industry will converge on Validity-Proof Throughput (VPT)—the rate at which provable state updates are settled.
Evidence: Arbitrum Nitro's AnyTrust chains can process ~40k TPS of simple transfers, but the binding constraint is the ~5 minute proof submission window to Ethereum L1. The bottleneck is settlement finality, not chain gossip.
key-trends
WHY 'PROOF-OF-VALIDITY' WILL BECOME A STANDARD METRIC
The Three Trends Killing TPS
Raw TPS is a vanity metric; the real bottleneck is proving computational integrity across fragmented execution layers.
01
The Problem: Fragmented L2 State
Users and assets are siloed across dozens of rollups and app-chains. Bridging and cross-chain execution create massive overhead, turning a single user action into multiple on-chain transactions. The real TPS killer is the coordination cost.
- ~$2B+ in locked bridge liquidity
- ~30 sec average optimistic rollup withdrawal time
- Sequencer-level MEV on every hop
30+
Major L2s
~30s
Withdrawal Latency
02
The Solution: Universal Proof Aggregation
Proof-of-Validity systems like zkSync, Starknet, and Polygon zkEVM don't just scale a single chain—they create a portable certificate of correct execution. This proof becomes the atomic unit of trust, enabling shared security models and verifiable cross-chain messages via protocols like LayerZero and Hyperlane.
- One proof validates a batch of 10k+ transactions
- Enables trust-minimized bridges (e.g., Across)
- Foundation for interoperable rollups
10k+
Txs per Proof
~99.9%
Cost Reduction
03
The Metric: Validity-Weighted TPS
The new standard won't be 'transactions per second' but 'verified state transitions per second'. This measures the system's capacity to not just process, but cryptographically prove execution across any environment. It's the key metric for Ethereum's rollup-centric roadmap and Celestia's modular data availability.
- Incentivizes proof efficiency over raw throughput
- Aligns security with scalability
- Essential for on-chain order flow auctions and intent-based systems (UniswapX, CowSwap)
PoV
New Standard
>1M
V-TPS Target
thesis-statement
THE NEW TRUST PRIMITIVE
The Proof-of-Validity Thesis
Proof-of-Validity (PoV) will replace probabilistic finality as the standard for evaluating blockchain security and user experience.
Proof-of-Validity is deterministic finality. Unlike probabilistic blockchains like Bitcoin or Ethereum L1, a PoV system (e.g., Arbitrum Nitro, zkSync Era) provides a cryptographic proof that state transitions are correct. This eliminates the need for users to wait for confirmations, enabling instant finality for cross-chain transactions and settlements.
The standard will shift from TPS to Prover Performance. Throughput metrics are meaningless without security guarantees. The new benchmark is prover efficiency, measured in proof generation time and cost. Projects like Risc Zero and Succinct Labs are competing to build the fastest general-purpose provers, making validity proofs a commodity.
This makes modular blockchains viable. A shared settlement layer like Celestia or EigenLayer only works with verifiable execution. Rollups must post validity proofs to prove their state is correct, creating a clean separation of concerns. This architecture is why Ethereum's roadmap is centered on rollups.
Evidence: The market is voting with its TVL. Validity rollups (Arbitrum, Optimism with Bedrock, Starknet) hold over $20B in TVL, dwarfing alternative scaling solutions like sidechains. Their security model, backed by Ethereum, is the primary driver of capital allocation.
THE NEW GAS METER
Proof-of-Validity Benchmark Matrix
Comparative benchmarks for leading validity proof systems, measuring the cost and performance of proving state transitions.
| Core Metric | zkSync Era | Starknet | Polygon zkEVM | Scroll |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Proving Cost per Tx (est.) | $0.10 - $0.25 | $0.05 - $0.15 | $0.20 - $0.40 | $0.15 - $0.30 |
Time to Finality (L1 Conf.) | ~15 min | ~3-5 hours | ~1 hour | ~1 hour |
Native Proof Recursion | ||||
Proof Aggregation (Batching) | ||||
Prover Hardware Acceleration | GPU | CPU (SHARP) | CPU/GPU | GPU |
L1 Verification Gas Cost | ~500k gas | ~250k gas | ~700k gas | ~600k gas |
EVM Bytecode Compatibility | Custom (LLVM) | Cairo VM | Full EVM | Full EVM |
Proof System | SNARKs (Boojum) | STARKs | SNARKs (Plonky2) | SNARKs (Halo2) |
deep-dive
THE NEW PRIMITIVE
The Prover Market is the New Battleground
Proof-of-Validity will become the standard metric for evaluating blockchain performance and security, creating a competitive market for zero-knowledge proof generation.
Proof-of-Validity is the new TPS. Throughput is a vanity metric; the real bottleneck is the cost and speed of generating validity proofs for L2s and modular chains. This shifts competition from raw speed to prover efficiency.
The market fragments into specialized prover networks. General-purpose chains like Polygon zkEVM compete with specialized zk-rollup stacks like Starknet and zkSync for developer mindshare, while dedicated prover services like RiscZero and Succinct emerge as infrastructure.
Proof generation becomes a commodity. As the market matures, the prover runtime and hardware (GPU/FPGA) become standardized. Competition will center on proof aggregation and latency, similar to the evolution of block building in MEV.
Evidence: Polygon zkEVM's Plonky2 prover benchmarks show a 100x speedup over prior implementations, directly reducing L2 batch confirmation times and operational costs.
protocol-spotlight
THE VALIDITY RACE
Protocols Betting on Proof Efficiency
As L2s commoditize, the competitive edge shifts from raw throughput to the economic efficiency of proving. These protocols are building the infrastructure to make validity proofs the default.
01
The Problem: Proving is a Bottleneck, Not a Feature
Today's ZK-Rollups treat their prover as a monolithic, in-house system. This creates vendor lock-in, high fixed costs, and slow innovation cycles for new proof systems (e.g., Plonk, STARKs, Nova).
- High Capital Cost: Building a competitive GPU/ASIC prover farm requires $10M+ upfront.
- Slow Adoption: Integrating a new, faster proof system can take a core team 12+ months.
- Inefficient Markets: Prover capacity is siloed, preventing cost arbitrage across chains.
12+ mos
Innovation Lag
$10M+
Prover Capex
02
The Solution: RiscZero's Universal ZK Coprocessor
Decouples proof generation from execution by making any program provable via the RISC-V instruction set. Turns general compute into a provable commodity.
- Language Agnostic: Prove code written in Rust, C++, Solidity via a single toolchain.
- Shared Prover Networks: Enables marketplace dynamics for proof batching and cost optimization.
- New Primitive: Enables trustless off-chain computation (e.g., AI inference, game engines) with on-chain verification, competing with EigenLayer and Espresso for the shared security market.
1000x
Use Cases
-90%
Dev Time
03
The Solution =nil; Foundation's Proof Market
A decentralized network that auctions proof-generation tasks. L2s like Polygon zkEVM and Matter Labs can submit proofs, and a competitive network of provers (using GPUs, ASICs) computes them for the lowest fee.
- Cost Efficiency: Dynamic pricing drives proving costs toward marginal electricity + hardware depreciation.
- Proof Aggregation: Can batch proofs across different L2s and even L1s (via Ethereum settlement), achieving economies of scale.
- Anti-Fragility: No single point of failure; the market routes around offline or censoring provers.
-70%
Proving Cost
24/7
Uptime
04
The Meta-Solution: Succinct's SP1 & Shared Prover Vision
An open-source, high-performance SP1 prover for the RISC-V VM (like RiscZero) combined with a managed network. Aims to be the AWS for provability.
- Performance Focus: ~2x faster than prior Rust-based provers, targeting sub-second proof times for heavy compute.
- Developer UX: Simplifies deployment of provable apps, abstracting away cryptographic complexity.
- Network Effects: As more chains (e.g., Polygon, Scroll) adopt SP1, the shared prover network becomes cheaper and faster for all, creating a proof liquidity flywheel.
2x
Faster Proving
<1s
Target Proof Time
05
The Consequence: Validity Proofs Become a Utility
When proving is a cheap, commoditized service via networks like =nil; and Succinct, the architectural calculus for L2s flips.
- Forking Becomes Trivial: Launching a new ZK-rollup requires only a state transition function, not a prover team.
- Security Standardization: All chains settle with the same cryptographic security guarantees, eroding the security marketing of incumbent L2s.
- Vertical Integration Dies: The Arbitrum and Optimism model of a bundled stack faces pressure from modular chains that lease proof capacity.
0
Prover Team Needed
Utility
New Market Class
06
The Ultimate Metric: Cost-Per-Validated-Instruction
The endgame is a single, universal metric for blockchain efficiency: the amortized cost to cryptographically verify one unit of computation (e.g., gas or instruction).
- Drives Architecture: Forces L2s to optimize for provable execution paths, not just EVM equivalence.
- Enables True Comparisons: A Solana SVM rollup can be directly compared to an Ethereum EVM rollup on a $/op basis.
- VC Due Diligence Shift: Valuation models will move from TVL and fee revenue to proof cost margins and throughput efficiency.
$/op
New KPI
Direct Comp
Across Stacks
counter-argument
THE METRIC MISDIRECTION
The TPS Defense (And Why It's Wrong)
Transactions per second is a vanity metric that distracts from the only performance benchmark that matters for user experience: proof-of-validity.
TPS measures throughput, not finality. A chain advertising 100k TPS often reports its theoretical peak in a lab, not the time a user waits for a confirmed, irreversible transaction. Finality time is the real bottleneck.
Proof-of-Validity is the new standard. This metric measures the time from transaction submission to cryptographic proof generation. For rollups like Arbitrum and Optimism, this is the L1 confirmation of their validity proof, which is the true settlement moment.
Validity proofs enable parallel execution. Unlike serialized execution in monolithic L1s, validity-proven systems like zkSync Era and Starknet can process transactions in parallel and prove them later. This decouples speed from security.
Evidence: Arbitrum Nitro processes ~2M TPS internally but settles a validity proof to Ethereum every ~20 minutes. The user's effective TPS is infinite; the only latency that matters is the proof finality window.
takeaways
THE VALIDITY IMPERATIVE
Implications for Builders and Investors
Proof-of-Validity (PoV) will shift infrastructure evaluation from speculative trust to verifiable cryptographic guarantees, creating new moats and risks.
01
The End of 'Trusted' Bridge Narratives
Investors can no longer rely on TVL and brand names like Multichain as security proxies. PoV provides a measurable, on-chain attestation of state correctness.\n- Key Metric: Bridge security score based on fault proof challenge period and validator set decentralization.\n- Investment Signal: Protocols like Across and LayerZero will be valued on their PoV implementation, not marketing.
$2B+
Bridge Hacks (2024)
7 Days
Standard Challenge Period
02
ZK-Rollups as the Baseline
For builders, not using a validity-proof system (like zkSync, Starknet, Scroll) will become a competitive liability. It's the only way to guarantee atomic composability and sovereign liquidity across L2s.\n- Builder Mandate: Integrate a shared proof marketplace (e.g., Espresso, Avail).\n- Result: Unlocks native yield from restaking and enables verifiable MEV capture.
~3s
Proof Finality
1000x
Cheaper Verification
03
The Modular Security Stack
PoV commoditizes execution, creating winner-take-all markets for proof aggregation, data availability, and sequencing. Investors must bet on the layers, not the chains.\n- Prime Targets: Celestia/EigenDA (data), Espresso/Astria (sequencing), Succinct (proof aggregation).\n- Outcome: L2 margins collapse; value accrues to the modular security providers.
$0.10
Per MB DA Cost
90%
Margin Compression
04
Intent-Based Architectures Win
PoV enables verifiable fulfillment for intent protocols like UniswapX and CowSwap. Users express desired outcomes; solvers compete with cryptographic proofs of optimal execution.\n- Builder Play: Design solvers that generate validity proofs for their solution.\n- Investor Lens: Value shifts from AMM liquidity to solver networks and proof infrastructure.
20-30%
Better Prices
0 Slippage
Guaranteed
05
Regulatory Arbitrage via Proofs
A verifiably correct state transition is an audit trail. Protocols that adopt PoV can demonstrate compliance programmatically, turning a cost center into a feature.\n- For Builders: Bake proof generation into core logic for regulated assets (RWA).\n- For Investors: Proof-of-Reserves and Proof-of-Solvency become minimum viable products, not differentiators.
24/7
Automated Audit
0
Manual Overhead
06
The Oracle Redundancy Event
PoV for cross-chain state makes most oracle use cases redundant. Why trust Chainlink for an asset price when you can have a validity proof of the entire DEX state from another chain?\n- Implication: Oracle networks must pivot to off-chain data (sports, weather) or become proof aggregators themselves.\n- Investment Risk: $10B+ oracle market cap faces existential disruption from native crypto truth.
~200ms
Latency vs 2s+
100%
Uptime Guarantee
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