Yesterday, when I was listening to the speech of the founder of Brevis, a term suddenly struck me: Verifiable Computing.

To be honest, I used to think that ZK was synonymous with "privacy protection." But in that moment, I suddenly realized that I might have been misunderstanding it all along.

that "aha" moment
Halfway through the speech, the founder said a sentence:

"A node performs complex calculations, and the entire network verifies the results in seconds using ZK proofs."

A scene suddenly flashed through my mind.

Just like during an exam, a top student spends two hours solving an extremely difficult math problem and then gives the answer and the solution steps to the teacher. The teacher doesn't need to calculate it again; with just a glance at the proof process, they can confirm in a few seconds, 'Yes, this answer is correct.'

This is the real killer feature of ZK!

It's not privacy, it's efficiency.

What did I misunderstand before?
To be honest, my first reaction when I saw ZK projects in the past was "another privacy coin" or "another anonymous transaction."

But Verifiable Computing tells me: the value of ZK goes far beyond privacy.

It addresses a more fundamental question: how to enable blockchain to perform complex computations without sacrificing decentralization and security?

The dilemma of traditional blockchain is:

Each node recalculates repeatedly → Too slow, too expensive

If only one node is allowed to compute → how can we ensure it hasn't cheated?

And the answer given by Verifiable Computing is:

Complex calculations are done off-chain (fast, cheap)

Use ZK proofs for on-chain verification (secure, trustworthy)

It's like equipping the blockchain with an "external brain".

What is Brevis doing?
After I understood Verifiable Computing, looking at Brevis was completely different.

The ZK Coprocessor they created essentially allows the blockchain to:

Cross-chain reading and computing of any public data

Perform complex calculations off-chain

Verify results on-chain using ZK proofs

For example:

Suppose you want to build a DeFi application that needs to read user historical data from Ethereum, Arbitrum, and Base simultaneously, and then calculate a credit score.

Traditional methods? Almost impossible, or prohibitively expensive.

But with Brevis, you can pull all the data for computation off-chain, then generate a ZK proof to tell the on-chain contract: "I calculated it, the result is this, and I guarantee I didn't cheat."

This is the true full-chain interoperability!

My feelings
After listening to that speech, I suddenly had a feeling of "redefining ZK."

Just like when I first understood that smart contracts are not just "automated executable code", but rather "programmable trust".

ZK is not just "privacy technology", but also "verifiable efficiency".

It allows the blockchain to do things that were previously impossible:

Complex Cross-Chain Computing

Large-scale data analysis

Low-cost AI inference verification

The ZK Coprocessor like Brevis is the infrastructure that turns this capability into reality.

This is what the next generation of blockchain should look like.

After finishing this article, I suddenly want to review all the ZK projects again.

Because I realized that I might have missed many teams that are really getting things done.

Verifiable Computing is the key? Maybe yes.

@no89thkey @brevis_zk #Yap