Foreseeing 2026, Zero-Knowledge and Ethereum Update [FP Weekly 49]
Recap of Four Pillars research content on Week 49, 2025
[Report] 2026 Outlook: Restructuring
Written by Four Pillars’ Researchers
2025 marked the first year in which the crypto market began to be redefined under clearly articulated rules. With the institutional foundation being put in place, token models that had long gravitated toward narrative-driven or overly financialized structures are being reconstructed based on fundamental value once again.
This is not merely a recovery phase or the start of a new bull cycle; it represents a broader transition in which the entire crypto ecosystem is moving toward new operating principles and new economic models. This is why we define 2025 as a year of Restructuring.
In 2025, the market is undergoing rapid restructuring, and the ability to read the depth of this shift will determine who holds the advantage in the next cycle. With this context in mind, this report captures the perspectives of each Four Pillars researcher on how they foresee the market in 2026. We hope that our insights serve as a useful guide as you navigate the crypto ecosystem in the coming year.
[Article] ZK-101: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the ZK Galaxy
Written by Ingeun
The emergence of blockchain provided humanity with “trust without intermediaries,” but it also introduced unwanted transparency requiring all history to be public and inefficiency requiring all data to be verified directly. The technology that re-emerged to solve this is Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKP).
ZKP is a technology that can “mathematically prove the truth of certain information without revealing the information itself,” offering a solution that preserves both privacy and trust.
Starting from early zk-SNARKs, followed by zk-STARKs, and later technologies like PLONK and Halo2, various ZK systems have been developed, becoming increasingly flexible and practical.
The essence of ZK technology can be summarized in two points: first, “concealment”, which hides information; second, “compression”, which makes complex computations succinct. The former solves privacy issues, while the latter addresses system scalability.
The blockchain ecosystem has served as a perfect “sandbox” to test and refine ZK technology. As a result, applications such as ZK rollups and privacy protocols have rapidly grown and produced real-world outcomes.
ZK technology is now moving beyond simple applications into a massive trust-producing infrastructure industry, including zkVMs, hardware acceleration (e.g., ASICs), and Prover·Verifier networks. Expansion into AI, finance, healthcare, and other industries where data privacy and integrity are critical is already in sight.
Supporting this trend, billions of dollars in VC funding are flowing into ZK infrastructure, and a skilled developer ecosystem is taking shape—opening a new economic paradigm centered around “proving” and “verifying.”
Ultimately, ZK will become a societal safety mechanism that verifies the behavior of autonomous agents in the coming age of AI and robotics, and a new trust framework for digital interactions.
[Issue] Fusaka: Be Ready to Meet New Ethereum!
Written by c4lvin
Today, Ethereum’s Fusaka upgrade is scheduled to go live. The Fusaka upgrade is characterized by consensus layer updates related to blob scalability, including PeerDAS and BPO forks, as well as execution layer updates that raise gas fees and block size limits.
Fusaka upgrade will pave the way for L2 rollups to scale while leveraging Ethereum’s native security instead of external data availability solutions, laying the foundation for the rollup ecosystem to be more tightly bound to Ethereum.
Coordinating and applying 12 EIPs within seven months in a decentralized network where thousands of nodes must reach consensus is by no means slow. This gradual and deliberate approach to evolution is precisely how Ethereum maintains the largest ecosystem among countless “killer” chains.
This Week’s Research
[Article]
[Issues]
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