Kakarot releases an alternative stack to Ethereum ZK, aiming to implement real-time STARK proofs on Ethereum L1 by the end of the year.

PANews April 30 news, according to The Block, the zkEVM project Kakarot, supported by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and StarkWare, announced the completion of a full-feature implementation of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and plans to provide real-time proof of Ethereum Layer 1 Blocks through the STARK proof system by the end of 2025. The project is built using the Cairo language developed by StarkWare, aiming to provide a zero-knowledge proof solution independent of mainstream technology stacks. Clement Walter, co-founder of Kakarot, said that the current system has been able to generate block proofs in under 8 seconds, which is faster than Ethereum’s 12-second block interval. The project differentiates the technology stack through the Cairo language and avoids relying on mainstream solutions such as the Plonky3 protender and the RISC-V instruction set. Ethereum’s 2028 roadmap relies on ZK proofs, and Kakarot claims to have built the “first trusted alternative” to generating zero-knowledge proofs of Ethereum blocks compared to mainstream stacks. The release comes as the Ethereum community is discussing an alternative to the RISC-V architecture proposed by Vitalik Buterin. The Kakarot team responded that while it makes sense for the execution layer to adopt a ZK-friendly instruction set, there is no need to rush to RISC-V.