Vitalik Wants Sub-1-Hour Ethereum Withdrawals With ZK Tech
- Buterin says waiting a week for withdrawals is too long for both users and providers.
- He backs ZK rollups as the best way to cut Ethereum exit time to under 1 hour.
- Proof aggregation could make Ethereum faster and safer as a settlement layer.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has called for sub-1-hour withdrawal times on Layer 2s, citing ZK rollups as the solution. He warns that week-long delays on L2 to L1 exits push users toward insecure bridges, undermining Ethereum’s decentralization goals. According to Buterin, the next critical milestone for Ethereum’s Layer 2 ecosystem is improving withdrawal times through validity proof systems, especially zero-knowledge (ZK) technology.
Faster Withdrawals to Preserve Trust in Ethereum
In his recent post on X, Buterin noted that many leading Layer 2 (L2) networks have now reached “stage 1” maturity. However, he insisted that simply reaching this benchmark is not enough. The real challenge lies in enabling faster native asset withdrawals from L2 to L1.
Currently, L2 users may wait up to a week to move funds back to the mainnet unless intermediaries step in. These intermediaries often rely on multisig wallets or MPC (multi-party computation), which Buterin noted as security risks.
Long withdrawal times, he explained, create heavy incentives for users to adopt these bridge-like solutions. This contradicts Ethereum’s vision of decentralization and opens up new trust assumptions that may weaken the ecosystem. “Waiting a week to withdraw is simply far too long,” Buterin said.
He pointed out that even intent-based solutions like ERC-7683 are economically inefficient under long delays. Liquidity providers battle with higher capital costs, which discourages participation and reduces ecosystem fluidity.
A New Hybrid Path: ZK, OP, and TEE
To address these issues, Buterin proposed a hybrid proof mechanism. His 2-of-3 strategy includes ZK proofs, Optimistic (OP) rollups, and Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs). This combination balances speed, security, and production maturity.
According to him, two out of three components, ZK and OP, are fully trustless, ensuring that not even one actor can compromise the system. Additionally, ZK and TEE allow for near-instant withdrawals, which improves the user experience. Furthermore, both OP and TEE components have seen live deployments, which are adding to system reliability.
Buterin emphasized that this approach is just one possible framework. Alternative combinations, such as ZK + ZK + OP or ZK + ZK + security council tiebreak, are also feasible. He said clearly that “I have no strong opinions here; I care about the underlying goal,” which is balancing speed and security without introducing centralized trust dependencies.
He also highlighted that the main bottleneck is gas costs. Posting large ZK proofs, sometimes over 500,000 gas per proof, or even 5 million for STARKs, makes frequent submissions costly. Therefore, Buterin suggested hourly settlements as a practical short-term goal.
Related: Vitalik Buterin’s EIP-7983 Proposes Gas Cap For Ethereum
Aggregation as the Long-Term Solution
Looking ahead, Buterin proposed proof aggregation as the solution to high on-chain costs. In this model, many ZK rollup proofs and privacy protocol transactions are compressed into a single verifiable submission. This aggregated proof could enable instant cross-L2 asset transfers via the L1.
This architecture, he noted, positions Ethereum’s base layer as the ecosystem’s settlement and economic anchor. With continual improvements in ZK-EVM proof systems and growing maturity in formal verification, the Ethereum community may soon reach this milestone.
He noted, “ZK proof tech has been immature and expensive. But recently, this is changing rapidly.” Buterin concluded by urging developers and researchers to collaborate on fast and secure withdrawals. “Let’s work together to make this happen,” he wrote.
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