Zksync recently launched Airbender, which is quite interesting. Airbender is a zero-knowledge virtual machine (zkVM) based on RISC-V, which is the direction that Vitalik emphasized not long ago (Vitalik believes that RISC-V can replace the existing EVM to improve Ethereum's efficiency).

What are its features? According to Zkync's description, it mainly balances decentralized proof and cost reduction. Airbender can achieve end-to-end proof of Ethereum blocks in 35 seconds with a single GPU (such as the NVIDIA H100) (it can reach 17 seconds in streamlined mode). According to its official benchmark tests, its basic proof speed reaches 21.8MHz, surpassing SP1 Turbo (3.45MHz) and RiscZero (1.1 MHz). Traditional systems generally require 50-160 GPUs to achieve similar results within 12 seconds. Airbender only requires a single GPU, which is beneficial for decentralized proof. Succinct's SP1 Hypercube zkVM proved that the average time to verify an Ethereum block was 10.3 seconds (10.8 seconds for a single block) last month, which is better than Airbender's 35 seconds. However, Zksync's Airbender has advantages in single GPU performance and open-source characteristics: it better meets the needs of decentralized proof scenarios and has lower costs. In other words, Airbender can alleviate the reliance on large-scale GPU clusters and reduce the risk of proof centralization.

In terms of cost, Zksync claims that its Airbender reduces proof costs to about $0.0001 per transaction. If this is true, it could significantly lower costs for high-frequency trading, micropayments, gaming, and decentralized social applications. Perhaps this will open up possibilities for exploring larger-scale on-chain application scenarios, such as on-chain gaming and payments between AI agents. Compared to other projects, there may be advantages of over 10 times in terms of cost. If this is the case, then the cost advantage combined with the advantages of decentralized proof will be more attractive to adopters in certain scenarios, such as on-chain gaming, while in some high-value transactions and scenarios that are less sensitive to fees, other zkVMs will also have their appeal.

Overall, Zksync's launch of Airbender cannot yet be regarded as a disruptive innovation, but it can be considered an important development in the Ethereum ecosystem. The ultimate effect depends on the adoption within the Ethereum ecosystem itself. Since a cohesive force has not yet formed, the specific effects will need to be observed over time.