Axiom
ZK proofs enable smart contracts to verifiably access historical on-chain data
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About Axiom
Axiom is a ZK coprocessor for Ethereum that enables smart contracts to access and compute over historical on-chain data without trust assumptions. Its core business provides a query protocol where developers submit data requests, Axiom generates zero-knowledge proofs off-chain, and the results are verified on-chain, allowing contracts to use verified historical data in their logic.
The market pain point Axiom addresses is the high cost and complexity of reading historical blockchain data directly from Ethereum. Currently, smart contracts are limited to accessing only the most recent state, while historical data requires expensive external bridges or oracles that introduce trust assumptions. Axiom solves this by using ZK proofs to cryptographically guarantee the correctness of historical data, making it as trustworthy as native on-chain data.
In the past six months (February to August 2026), Axiom has focused on performance improvements and formal verification. Key developments include the release of OpenVM 2.0, which achieved 1 GHz proving throughput, and OpenVM 2.1 Preview with real-time Ethereum proving on 4 GPUs. The team also formally verified the Keccak and SHA-2 hash circuits in Lean, strengthening the security guarantees of the system. Additionally, GPU-based proving is now available on the Axiom Proving API, reducing costs for developers.
Axiom launched its alpha on Ethereum mainnet in 2023, enabling smart contracts to trustlessly access historical on-chain data via ZK proofs. In January 2024, Axiom V2 went live on mainnet, adding support for transactions, receipts, and Solidity mappings, with a full audit by Spearbit, Zellic, and Trail of Bits. Later that year, Axiom raised $20 million led by Paradigm and Standard Crypto. In 2025, OpenVM 2.0 achieved production readiness, proving Ethereum mainnet blocks in under 3 minutes on CPU at $0.0015 per transaction, and the Axiom Proving API entered private alpha. These milestones mark Axiom's evolution from a research prototype to a scalable ZK coprocessor infrastructure.
Major progress:
- OpenVM 2.0 proves Ethereum mainnet blocks in real time with a p99 of 11.8s on 16 GPUs, meeting the Ethereum Foundation's L1 zkEVM performance target.
- OpenVM 2.0 Beta improves average proving time to 4.4s (p99 7.9s) at ~$0.01 per block, with real-time proving on 10 GPUs; it is open-sourced.
- Formal verification of OpenVM's RISC-V extension was completed in Lean with Nethermind, covering all 45 RV32IM opcodes and finding no circuit bugs.
- A partnership with Lighter enables Lighter EVM, a hybrid ZK system combining OpenVM 2.0 with custom circuits for composable general-purpose EVM execution.
Future focus:
- Continue formal verification, target 128-bit security, and integrate with Ethereum clients.
- OpenVM 2.0 preview on the Axiom Proving API, followed by full production release with GPU proving via API or on-prem deployments.
Yi Sun (Co-Founder): Ph.D. in Mathematics from MIT, advised by Vladimir Drinfeld; postdoc at IAS; NSF Fellow at MIT; Senior Postdoc at Perimeter Institute; current Co-Founder of Axiom.
Jonathan Wang (Co-Founder): A.B./A.M. in Mathematics from Harvard; M.A.St. from Cambridge; Ph.D. from University of Chicago; postdoc at IAS; current Co-Founder of Axiom.
Nathan Feng (COO): Background in quantitative analysis (D.E. Shaw) and math education (Art of Problem Solving); current COO of Axiom.