Summary: Proof markets give your apps the ability to "order a proof" just like they would call an API. This shifts ZK proving from a custom, capital-intensive process into a convenient on-demand service that comes with guarantees on price, latency, and privacy. In this guide, we’ll walk decision-makers through the design, budgeting, and deployment of production apps that securely outsource proving across today’s top networks.

Proof Markets for Developers: Writing Apps That ‘Order Proofs’ On Demand

Decision-makers often hit us with a straightforward question: can my app just reach out and grab a ZK proof when it needs one? By 2025, the answer is a resounding yes! The purchasing experience is starting to look a lot like what we're used to in the cloud world: think job specs, SLAs, price/performance tiers, and even multi-provider failover options. In this piece, we’ll break down the current landscape of the proof market, show you how to set up your app to “order proofs,” and share some valuable lessons learned from recent mainnet and testnet launches.

What “proof markets” really are (for builders)

A proof market is like a two-sided marketplace that connects those needing applications (the buyers) with folks who provide prover capacity (the sellers) to whip up zero-knowledge proofs for whatever computation, circuit, or zkVM program you need--whenever you need it, all at prices and speeds that are shaped by demand. Think of it as a “render farm” or “serverless job,” but instead of just any old output, you're getting a compact, verifiable proof that you can either throw on-chain or verify off-chain. (coinmarketcap.com)

Why This Matters to Execs:

Faster time-to-market: You can skip waiting on a cryptography team or the hassle of shipping custom hardware for your first version.
Opex vs Capex: You only pay for what you use. Scale up as needed, and you won’t have to worry about GPU costs weighing down your balance sheet.
Optionality: Easily switch vendors, add extra layers of security, or bring it in-house later without having to completely overhaul your system.

The 2025 landscape at a glance

Here’s a rundown of the networks your team will run into most frequently while mapping out an “order proofs” architecture. Each of these networks has its own strengths, whether it's in latency, privacy, verification costs, hardware needs, or how you go about getting them.

Succinct Prover Network (SP1 zkVM)
- What’s new: The SP1 Hypercube is impressively proving most Ethereum blocks in under 12 seconds in both lab settings and early production environments. Plus, Succinct is launching a decentralized prover marketplace where provers will be competing based on price and latency. Check it out here.
- Why care: This means we can expect real-time block or application proofs, along with some pretty great developer ergonomics for those working with Rust and LLVM. Find more details here.
RISC Zero Bonsai and Boundless
- What’s new: Bonsai is here as a production proving service complete with REST/SKD APIs, while Boundless introduces a decentralized compute marketplace featuring “Proof of Verifiable Work” and an incentivized testnet on Base set to roll out by July 2025. (dev.risczero.com)
- Why care: We’re talking about mature APIs, efficient parallel GPU clusters, and a solid game plan for transitioning from a centralized service to a decentralized market.
=nil; Foundation Proof Market
- What’s new: the fresh “Proof Market” brand and its tools are designed to make proof generation across different ecosystems a breeze. Plus, the team’s diving into zk‑sharded L2 architecture. (coindesk.com)
- Why care: they've got a solid protocol-first approach and are already making waves in various chains in the early stages.
Fermah Universal Proof Market (integrations with ZKsync + EigenLayer operators)
- What’s new: There’s an exciting update--a “universal” matchmaker that’s now able to route jobs across a decentralized operator set, which often includes EigenLayer operators. You might have heard about this in ZKsync’s Elastic Network announcements from this year! Check it out here: (hozk.io).
- Why care: This isn’t just a cool tech upgrade; it also brings multi-scheme support (think Groth16, PLONK, STARK, and zkVM) along with flexible job routing over restaked operators.
Lagrange Prover Network + AVS
- What’s new: We’ve got some exciting updates! There are now decentralized prover network demos for ZKsync’s ZK stack, and the very first ZK AVS is up and running on the EigenLayer mainnet. Check it out here: (lagrange.dev).
- Why care: This means we’re looking at institutional-level operators and enhanced security powered by AVS.
Aligned Layer (it’s like a verification layer, but not a prover)
- What’s new: we’ve got an EigenLayer AVS focused on speedy and budget-friendly verification. Basically, teams can handle the proving elsewhere and then use Aligned to verify for just about 10% of what you'd usually pay for L1 verification gas. Check it out here: (blog.alignedlayer.com)
- Why should you care: It’s all about slashing those verification costs, even if you decide to stick with your current prover(s).
Brevis coChain AVS (ZK coprocessor)
- What’s new: We're excited to introduce the ZK coprocessor along with the AVS model! This upgrade not only cuts down on coprocessing costs but also allows for historical state queries and custom computations. Check out the details in our post: (blog.brevis.network)
EigenLayer as the “security & operator base”
- Context: The rollout of AVS is picking up speed, and we’re seeing big Layer 2s like Mantle and ZKsync jumping on board with EigenDA and decentralized proving via AVSs. This is setting the stage for various proof-market deployments and operator groups. (blockworks.co)

Core architecture: how an app “orders a proof”

At a high level, here’s how your app works: you kick things off by submitting a job spec to a market. The market then finds a suitable prover (or multiple provers), who sends back a proof along with some metadata. After that, your verifier--whether it’s on-chain or off-chain--takes a look to confirm everything checks out. If you’re running verification on Ethereum, you might want to consider using a verification layer like Aligned to save on gas fees. (blog.alignedlayer.com)

A solid production flow usually goes down like this:

Program/Circuit Artifact
- This could be a zkVM ELF (like SP1 or RISC Zero guest) or maybe a SNARK/STARK circuit.
Job Spec
- Here, you’ll need the program/circuit hash, choosing a proving scheme, setting the recursion depth, max latency, bid cap, and figuring out the witness transport options (whether it's plain, encrypted, or TEE-only).
Marketplace Match
- Time to find a match! This might be through an auction or a fixed-price assignment. The best marketplaces do a great job of documenting auction details and penalties if things run late.
Proving
- This is where a GPU/FPGA pool steps in to get things done; it might even use recursion and batching to boost efficiency.
Delivery
- You've got your proof, transcript, and any optional aggregation artifacts ready for delivery.
Verification
- Now, it’s verification time! This can happen on-chain via a verifier, through a verification layer (like Aligned), or with an off-chain guard service.
Settlement and Attestation
- Finally, we wrap it all up with payment, slashing for any missed service level objectives (SLOs), and if you’re using private proving, you’ll need that TEE attestation report as well.

Two interesting trends to keep an eye on in 2025:

Real-time proving: The SP1 Hypercube is pushing the limits by proving Ethereum blocks in under 12 seconds with certain hardware setups. This is super handy for rollup base proofs, quick bridges, and oracle-level ZK. Check it out here.
Private proving with TEEs: Succinct and Phala are taking things up a notch by running zkVM provers in GPU-backed Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) like H200 and Intel TDX. This means that witness data stays safe and sound within an enclave, and developers can benefit from remote attestation along with the proof. Dive into the details here.

This is the quickest way to get your MVP up and running that purchases proofs “as a service.”

Create your zkVM program (guest) and host

Dive into the RISC Zero toolchain to compile your Rust code into the zkVM guest.

Switch to Remote Proving

Just set up your environment variables and kick off the default prover! Bonsai takes care of the heavy lifting by parallelizing across your GPU workers.

export BONSAI_API_KEY=<YOUR_API_KEY>
export BONSAI_API_URL=https://api.bonsai.xyz
cargo run --release

In the Rust host code, the function default_prover() will automatically connect to Bonsai as long as the environment variables are set up. Keep in mind that Bonsai has some quotas in place, such as limits on the number of concurrent proofs, cycle budgets, and executor cycle limits for each proof. You can get more info on this over at dev.risczero.com.

3) Get a SNARK-Wrapped Proof for On-Chain Verification

With Bonsai, you can wrap RISC Zero’s STARK in a Groth16 SNARK, making on-chain verification a lot more affordable. Check it out here!

Verify on‑chain

Go ahead and use the Groth16 verifier (like a regular Solidity verifier contract) to validate the proof in your L1/L2 app. Alternatively, you can post it to a verification layer such as Aligned to keep those gas fees down. Check out more details here.

Operational Notes:

Bonsai promotes a stellar 99.9% uptime along with auto-scaling GPU clusters tailored for enterprise workloads. Make sure to touch base with sales for the latest SLOs and regional coverage. You can check more details here.

If you're looking to "prove fast and decentralize the supply side," then Succinct is definitely the way to go.

What you need to share with the marketplace:

Program hash: This is the SP1 program, and it’s compiled from Rust/LLVM.
Latency ceiling: For example, you want the p95 to be less than or equal to 12 seconds for block-equivalent workloads in the supported environments.
Price cap and trust flags: You can choose between non-private (standard) or private proving in TEEs.

Under the hood:

Succinct’s network connects your job with a specific prover set, and the SP1 Hypercube takes care of the proving. This new system is based on multilinear polynomials and aims for some serious upgrades, boasting up to 5× improvements in latency and cost compared to earlier versions. Check it out here: (blog.succinct.xyz)

When Privacy is Needed:

Go for Succinct Private Proving. Your witness gets handled solely within TEE-backed GPU nodes (H200 + Intel TDX). You'll get a ZK proof along with an attestation report. Check it out here: (blog.succinct.xyz)

Governance and Decentralization

Succinct has rolled out PROVE as the native token for its decentralized prover network. This move brings open participation and cryptoeconomic alignment to the marketplace mechanics. You can read more about it here.

A lot of teams stick with their current proving stack, whether it's in-house or from an external source, and send verification over to Aligned. This helps cut down on costs and minimizes competition on Ethereum.

You send out the same proof that you’ve already generated.
Your contract connects to Aligned’s verification interface. Aligned does the verification at a lower cost compared to standard L1 verification and shares the results right where you need them--whether that's on Ethereum or another data availability layer you prefer. Teams have reported cutting their previous verification costs down by at least 10% with Aligned, so it's worth checking out with your current gas fees and proof scheme. (blog.alignedlayer.com)

When to Use This Pattern

If you're currently tied to a proof system (like Groth16, PLONK, or zkVM) but are looking for quick L1 gas savings and some extra room for throughput.

If your risk model leans towards “market competition + restaked security,” then you should connect with a proof network that operates as an EigenLayer AVS or one where the operators are restakers.

ZKsync recently rolled out some exciting updates that focus on decentralized proving across multiple AVSs and EigenDA for better data availability. This means they're reducing risk from relying on a single vendor and boosting crypto-economic security thanks to restaked ETH. You can read more about it here.
Lagrange made waves as the first ZK AVS on the EigenLayer mainnet, showing us a cool way for ZK verification and proving services to operate with shared security. Check out the details here.
Brevis just launched their coChain AVS, which introduces a ZK coprocessor under the security of AVS and comes with some impressive restaking commitments. Want to know more? Dive into their blog post here.

Witness privacy is now a first‑class requirement

Zero-knowledge is all about keeping your data private from the verifier, not the prover. But if a third-party prover gets access to your witness, you might end up exposing some sensitive info like amounts, strategies, or even credentials at the infrastructure level.

Two Production-Ready Mitigations

TEE-based private proving: This approach involves running the prover inside GPU-backed TEEs, which means you can get remote attestation along with the proof. Companies like Succinct and Phala are already providing this for SP1. Check out their details here.
In-app client proving on capable devices: Recent benchmarks show that modern smartphones can handle non-trivial workloads in just a few seconds. This lets you keep the witnesses right on the user’s device while only outsourcing aggregation or recursion. It’s worth considering this model, especially where the user experience can handle some device workload. For more info, take a look at the study here.

Hardware acceleration and the throughput frontier

Proof markets are speeding through the same curve you're on: quicker cycles, lower costs for proofs, and more extensive coverage.

SP1 Hypercube is doing some serious heavy lifting, parallelizing hundreds of millions of RISC‑V cycles per block across GPU clusters. Plus, they’re rolling out open-sourced verifier and prover code, all while keeping things under audit. And hey, they're planning to keep improving latency over time! (theblock.co)
We’re starting to see dedicated chips popping up, like the Keccak acceleration for the Valida zkVM. This means we’ll likely have a mixed fleet of GPU, FPGA, and ASIC chips hitting the market, which should help drive down your $/proof even more. (blog.alignedlayer.com)

Integration blueprint: from POC to production in 4-6 weeks

Week 1: Pick Your Proving Mode(s)

MVP: If you're looking for the quickest route, check out the Bonsai REST/SDK. You can find all the details here.
Low-latency and Decentralization: Consider the Succinct Prover Network, whether you want Private Proving or not. Dive into the details here.
Verification Savings: For a smart way to save on verification, route it over to Aligned. Check out more about it here.

Week 2: Define the Job Spec Schema

Program/circuit hash
Input schema
Max cycles (if zkVM)
Timeout
Refund policy
Escrow account
Privacy flag (TEE-only)
Allowed regions

Week 3: Implement Transport + Attestation

Witness Transport: Make sure to encrypt both at rest and in transit. For TEE jobs, double-check the attestation before sending the witness; any non-attested endpoints should be turned away. (blog.succinct.xyz)
Marketplace Timeouts: It's a good idea to add some retry/backoff logic and a circuit-breaker for those pesky timeouts.

Week 4: Verification Contracts + Analytics

We're diving into on-chain verification or Aligned integration. Let's roll up those proof receipts and latencies into a handy metrics table for our p50/p95 SLOs. You can read more about it here.

Weeks 5-6: Multi-market failover

Bring in a second provider (like Succinct + Bonsai, or Fermah-backed AVSs when you can); make sure to standardize the receipt format so that flipping between providers won't mess with the business logic. (hozk.io)

Cost, latency, and SLO modeling (how to budget realistically)

Use a Bottom-Up Model

Prover Price: This can be based on a per-job or per-cycle basis (you’ll see this in zkVM), plus any extra fees for low-latency SLAs or TEE privacy.
Verification Cost: Keep an eye on on-chain gas fees or go for an Aligned fee. Depending on the scheme, using verification layers can really cut down L1 gas by a significant amount--sometimes even tenfold. Just make sure to validate based on your proof type and calldata size. Check out the details in this blog post.
DA Cost: If you’re posting to EigenDA or something similar, it's smart to bundle proofs whenever you can to spread out the costs. Some networks even batch or aggregate proofs right out of the box. For more insights, take a look at this article from Blockworks.

Latency Tips:

When it comes to “UX-critical under 2s” paths, make sure to test locally on the device and consider outsourcing recursion. For those “ops-critical under 12s” situations, aim for SP1 Hypercube-class clusters. And for “back-office minutes,” pretty much any market will do. (blog.succinct.xyz)

Security and compliance checklists that survive audits

Threat Model Highlights

Prover Honesty: Always count on cryptographic verification! Plus, we can add a layer of security with market-level slashing/escrow and signed receipts that include nonces.
Witness Confidentiality: For sensitive inputs, we need TEE-attested proving. Also, let's make sure to log and pin the attestation measurements for every release. Check out more details here.
Supply Chain: It’s a good idea to go for markets that have a bunch of independent operators, like AVS-backed sets on EigenLayer. If you want to dive deeper, here's a useful article from Blockworks.

Controls to Implement

Determinism Checks: Make sure to pin your compiler versions and throw in a proof‑of‑program hash in your on‑chain verifier. This is a great way to keep those pesky substitution attacks at bay.
Formal Verification Posture: Keep an eye on which vendors are putting their money into formal methods for their zkVM/circuits. For instance, check out the SP1 circuit determinism work with Veridise/Picus. When you’re going through the DDQ, don’t hesitate to ask for artifacts. You can find more about this at hozk.io.
Incident Response: It’s super important to set up timeouts and auto‑failover thresholds. Plus, having a “kill‑switch” that allows you to switch to local proving for those safety‑critical actions can really save the day.

Build vs. buy: decision guide

Go with Bonsai if you're looking for the quickest way to get to production. It comes with clear quotas, REST/SDK support, and you’ll know what kind of throughput to expect. When you’re ready for decentralized sourcing, switch over to Boundless. (dev.risczero.com)
Pick Succinct if your app needs lightning-fast, ultra-low-latency proving and you want to work with Rust natively. Plus, you can enable Private Proving for those sensitive workloads. (blog.succinct.xyz)
Choose Aligned if you’re facing high verification costs on Ethereum. You can stick with your current prover and cut those verification expenses. (blog.alignedlayer.com)
Opt for an AVS-backed market (like Lagrange or Fermah-integrated operators) if decentralization and crypto-economic security are your top priorities. (medium.com)
Choose =nil; Proof Market when you’re after protocol-level integration and want cross-ecosystem support from a vendor who’s been in the marketplace game from the get-go. (coindesk.com)

Emerging best practices from teams shipping in 2025

Split up “witness‑handling” and “prover‑selection”
- Maintain a compact, well-audited module for witness encryption and attestation, plus a separate module for selecting markets and placing bids. This way, you can switch out providers without having to go through the hassle of revalidating your privacy controls.
Multi‑market receipts
- Normalize receipts: include program hash, scheme, witness commitment, timing metadata, prover identity, and the TEE attestation hash (if applicable). This helps with fraud analysis and ensures everything lines up for SLA reconciliation down the road.
Verification Indirection
- If you’re planning to verify on L1 for the long haul, consider adding a “verification router” contract. This will let you switch between L1 verification and other layers like Aligned without having to redeploy your app logic. Check it out here: (blog.alignedlayer.com)
Operator diversity
- Look for provider sets that have independent operators listed (a lot of AVSs share their operator rosters) and keep an eye on concentration risk. (medium.com)
Hardware awareness
- When chatting with vendors, make sure to inquire about the types of GPUs they offer, how much memory they have, and their batching strategies. It's all about aligning your recursion depth with what works best for them to keep those tail latencies down--think SP1 Hypercube clusters for block-class workloads. (blog.succinct.xyz)

A note on mobile and edge proving

If your user experience allows for on-device work, client-side proving is becoming a reality, not just a concept. Recent large-scale experiments have shown that modern smartphones can generate proofs in less than five seconds for specific tasks. This means we can enable private client-side proving while still using server-side aggregation. You might want to explore markets for aggregation or recursion, or even for heavy proofs that go beyond the device's thermal limits. Check it out here: (arxiv.org)

Putting it together: a reference “order a proof” job spec

Use this schema (make sure to adapt it to fit your provider):

{
  "program_hash": "0xSP1_or_RISC0_program_commitment",
  "scheme": "zkvm-sp1|risc0-stark+snark|groth16|plonk|stark",
  "witness_transport": "tee_only|encrypted|plain_devnet",
  "max_latency_ms": 12000,
  "price_cap_usd": 1.75,
  "recursion": { "depth": 2, "aggregate": true },
  "delivery": { "format": "proof+public_inputs+transcript", "callback_url": "https://example.com/cb" },
  "verification_target": "aligned|ethereum|other_da",
  "attestation": { "required": true, "tee": "intel-tdx+h200", "measurement": "sha256:..." },
  "escrow": { "network": "ethereum", "payer": "0x...", "refund_on_timeout_ms": 15000 }
}

For Bonsai, you'll want to translate those into REST/SDK parameters like cycles/quota, executor limits, and parallelism. Check out the details here.
When it comes to Succinct, make sure you specify the SP1 program hash, latency ceiling, and privacy flag; the network will take care of the auction and matching for you. You can learn more here.
For Aligned, focus on verification and simply pass through the proof that you get from your chosen prover. For more info, head over here.

Where this is going next

Get ready for three big shifts coming our way in the next year:

Latency race → “sub‑block” classes: Real-time proving is going to be essential for L1 and L2 infrastructures. This opens up new possibilities for designs that previously relied on slower proofs. You can read more about this here.
Privacy by default: Expect TEE-backed private proving and per-job attestations to become non-negotiable for businesses and privacy-focused products. Check out more details here.
Restaked operator economies: We're likely to see more proof networks adopting EigenLayer-style security and shared operator pools. This will help standardize SLAs and cut down costs. For more information, head over to this link.

How 7Block Labs can help

We’ve rolled out the patterns mentioned above for L2s, cross-chain bridges, and privacy-protecting applications. If you’re looking for:

a four-week pilot that buys proofs from two markets while keeping privacy intact and verification costs low;
a procurement-ready SOW with clear SLOs, receipts, and top-notch audit controls; or
an easy way to blend local proofs, TEEs, and markets without having to rewrite your app,

We can get the stack up and running with your team quickly, so you’ll feel confident about going into production in no time.

If you’re still thinking about proofs just in terms of “research,” it’s time to shake things up with proof markets. Approach them like any other key cloud service--choose your providers wisely, set clear SLAs, get your witnesses in place, and then get to work!