For a long time, zero-knowledge proof technology has been considered a "theoretically perfect, practically slow" technology due to its high computational overhead and slow generation process, making it difficult to meet the stringent requirements of blockchain block times, thus hindering its application in real-world scenarios. However, in 2025, this situation was completely reversed, and ZK performance is no longer the main obstacle to its application. A landmark breakthrough is the SP1 Hypercube proof system developed by the Succinct team. It successfully demonstrated the ability to generate ZK proofs for over 93% of Ethereum mainnet blocks within a 12-second block slot using a cluster of consumer-grade GPUs, with an average proof generation time of only 10.3 seconds. As for why the Succinct SP1 Hypercube was able to achieve such a significant technological advancement, it can be simply understood as primarily stemming from the following two improvements: 🔹 The process of generating ZK proofs requires encoding blockchain transaction data into a mathematical polynomial, and this encoding result helps form the final proof. It can be imagined as packing a large amount of messy luggage into a box. The polynomial used before was called Univariate Polynomials, which did not match the structure of blockchain data very well, like trying to fit square items into a round box, always leaving gaps or causing compression, resulting in a time-consuming and inefficient encoding preparation process. The SP1 Hypercube invented a new polynomial (Multilinear Polynomials) that better fits the multidimensional characteristics of transaction data, which is equivalent to designing a rectangular box that can perfectly fill the luggage. This significantly shortened the data encoding preparation time, accelerating proof generation from minutes to seconds, achieving real-time results; 🔹 Originally, proof generation was like a single person manually packing, with the entire process being step-by-step and unable to be split. Now, the SP1 Hypercube uses a new algorithm (including recursive aggregation and optimization protocols) that allows large proofs to be broken down into multiple small proof tasks, each processed independently, and then easily merged into a complete proof. The benefit of splitting is that it can fully utilize multi-core CPUs or GPUs for parallel computation, like multiple people packing luggage at the same time, thus greatly increasing the overall speed to keep pace with Ethereum's block generation every 12 seconds, achieving real-time proof.