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Last month at ZKM, all attention was on one thing: performance.

We're getting closer to the highly-anticipated release of zkMIPS⁺, the next-level proving infrastructure aiming to set a new standard for zkVM performance. Below is a breakdown of everything that happened in March across development, education, research, ecosystem updates, and public appearances.‍

Development

ZKM engineering continues to push proving performance to new limits.

• We’ve upgraded the instruction set from MIPS2 to MIPS32R2, reducing instruction count by ~9% and improving execution efficiency.
  
• The recursion module is now integrated directly into the core ZKM codebase, paving the way for improved modularity and reuse.
  
• A new build of the zkMIPS toolchain is now live, along with LLVM patches that reduce program instruction sizes.
  
• Most critically, zkMIPS⁺ is now being integrated into the ZKM Proof Network — a major step toward bringing next-level proving infrastructure into production.
  

🛠️ Full update: ZKM Dev Thread‍

Research

ZKM Research published three foundational pieces this month:

1. zkVM Overview
   A full-stack introduction to zkVMs for developers and researchers. Covers machine architecture, circuit construction, constraint systems, and proof strategies across zkVM designs.
   → Read the article
   
2. Lookup Arguments in ZK
   A technical breakdown of how lookup constraints are used to enforce membership relationships and data consistency within ZK circuits. Includes protocol design and performance tradeoffs.
   → Read the article
   
3. ZKM Prover: Proof Generation and Aggregation
   An in-depth look into ZKM’s modular proof pipeline. Learn how segment-level execution traces are routed through modular tables, verified with logup constraints, recursively aggregated, and finalized for on-chain verification.
   → Read the article
   

Community & Panels

ZKM was featured in several high-signal discussions across the ecosystem:

• ETHProofs Panel @ ZK Hub
  ZKM Developer Lead Stephen Duan joined teams from Snarkify, o1Labs, and Kakarot to discuss zkVM benchmarking, public goods, and zk block proofs.
  → Watch now
  
• State of zkVMs @ ZK Hub
  Stephen also spoke on zkVM architectures, tradeoffs between performance and memory, and how design choices affect recursion and dev UX alongside speakers from Lita, ZKsync, and Ligero.
  → Watch now
• The Future of ZK
  ZKM Co-founder Ming Guo discussed the path from primitives to production: what’s needed to move ZK from theory into global-scale deployment.
  → Watch now
  

Education

We launched a new developer education series hosted by ZKM Education Lead, Alice Liu. The goal: help developers understand and use zkMIPS from the ground up.

• Part 1: Fundamentals of verifiable computation and what zkMIPS enables.
  
• Part 2: Writing your first zkMIPS program, generating a proof, and verifying it on-chain.
  
• More parts releasing soon.
  

→ Watch the series‍

House of ZK Radio

ZKM contributed to several episodes of House of ZK Radio this month:

• Ming Guo on zkMIPS, Entangled Rollups, and the DAC Economy
  
• Alice Liu and Viv Ford from Aleo on community building
  
• Alice Liu and Sinka Gao from Delphinus Lab on zkVM UX and WebAssembly
  
• Alice Liu at NOIRCON with Zac Williamson, Uma Roy, Illia Polosukhin and more
  

→ Listen on Spotify
→ Watch on YouTube

GOAT Network Mainnet Launch 🟡 

The first real-world use case for zkMIPS has arrived. GOAT Network - built on ZKM's zkMIPS stack - has launched its Alpha Mainnet.

As the first BTC-native yield mechanism, GOAT combines BitVM2 with zkMIPS-optimized execution and decentralized sequencing. This is the first real-world deployment of zkMIPS and a proving ground for the zkMIPS⁺ architecture.

→ Read more‍

Looking Ahead

The zkMIPS⁺ release is imminent.
The proof network is being upgraded.
Real-time block proving is on the horizon.
And we’re just getting started.

If you’re a researcher or developer building at the frontier of ZK, now is the time to pay attention.

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If you want a future that’s trustlessly verifiable - stay close. zkMIPS⁺ is coming.