February 5th, 2026 – New York City, New York
Certora, the full-stack security assurance platform trusted by the most advanced teams in Web3, has been awarded a research grant from the Ethereum Foundation to verify the correctness of autoprecompiles.
Autoprecompiles are a key optimization in ZK computation developed by Powdr Labs for the Ethereum Foundation’s zkEVM initiative.
The zkEVM will unlock a massive optimization in scalability of the Ethereum network by replacing the current execution model for smart contracts with an optimized, ZK-enabled alternative. Ensuring the correctness of the zkEVM’s execution engine is vital to the success of this initiative.
Autoprecompiles are automatically inferred, low-level ZK circuit components that are re-used to optimize performance and enable faster cryptographic and arithmetic operations on the zkEVM. This optimization is essential to building a performant zkEVM, and through this grant, Certora and Powdr Labs are partnering to develop new verification techniques to guarantee the correctness of this optimization technique.
The zkEVM is the foundation of a zero-knowledge future for EVM, with less gas, more speed, more security, and massive scalability. The goal is to create a vastly more efficient model that benefits the entire ecosystem.
“Autoprecompiles make the zkEVM execution layer viable, but they also increase the importance of verifying the correctness of the entire toolchain,” said Seth Hallem, CEO of Certora. “We’re grateful to the Ethereum Foundation for supporting this work, which brings mathematical verification to the very foundation of ZK computation. Certora’s expertise in ZK and our collaboration with Powdr Labs will help ensure that this optimization technique plays a key role in the zkEVM toolchain without compromising on safety or correctness.”
Certora will open-source its specifications, proofs, and verification frameworks developed through this initiative, contributing reusable infrastructure for all zkEVM implementations, rollup builders, and ZK protocol researchers.
“Precompiles have been key to zkEVM performance, and autoprecompiles can take this even further by verifying these optimisations automatically as they are generated,” said Alexander Hicks, Researcher at the Ethereum Foundation. “We’ll also reduce the need to verify manual precompiles and hopefully develop generally useful verification techniques that will be applicable to other use cases.”
About Certora
Certora is the security assurance partner trusted by the most advanced teams in Web3. Founded in 2018 by pioneers in programming languages and formal methods, Certora helps leading protocols like Lido, Aave, Uniswap, and Compound secure billions in value with confidence.
About the Ethereum Foundation
The Ethereum Foundation is a non-profit dedicated to supporting Ethereum and related technologies. Through grants and research initiatives, the EF advances the open-source development of decentralized infrastructure.
About Powdr Labs
Powdr Labs develops compiler technology for efficient zero-knowledge proofs of high-level programs. By specializing compilation and optimization pipelines, Powdr closes the gap between the performance of custom ZK circuits and zkVMs, without compromising on usability.
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