BREV (Brevis) Research Report

I. Project Overview

II. Project Introduction

1. This paradigm is implemented through two complementary engines. Pico zkVM is a general-purpose zk virtual machine capable of compiling programs written in Rust or C into RISC-V instructions and generating cryptographic proofs of execution. In real-time benchmarks from the Ethereum Foundation, Pico zkVM achieves proof times below 12 seconds for 99.6% of Ethereum blocks and below 10 seconds for 96.8%, placing it among the fastest real-time zkVMs in production.
2. The ZK Data Coprocessor is designed specifically for querying and aggregating historical blockchain data. It can produce cryptographic proofs for queries such as thirty-day trading volume or wallet balance snapshots in one to three seconds, and it can batch incentive distributions for 100,000 addresses every four hours. These proofs are consumed directly by smart contracts through DEX hooks, fee logic, and reward mechanisms.

III. Product & Technology

• Modular zkVM Architecture Pico adopts a “minimal core plus pluggable coprocessors” design. High-frequency instructions such as SHA-256, Keccak, and ECDSA are hardened into dedicated modules, combined with a 1-GHz-level constraint system and a distributed multi-GPU cluster, achieving an average 6.9-second proving time for a 45-million-gas Ethereum block.
• ZK Data Pipeline Lightweight clients fetch block headers, Merkle Patricia Trie nodes, and event logs, build state trees off-chain, and combine lookup tables with recursive proofs, resulting in a constant 200 to 400 millisecond on-chain verification cost, regardless of query size.
• ProverNet Market Mechanism Introduces a Truthful Online Double Auction (TODA) model in which demanders submit maximum willingness-to-pay and deadlines, while suppliers declare hardware types and marginal costs. Each auction round settles on Brevis Chain, using matching algorithms that guarantee incentive compatibility, budget balance, and asymptotic optimality. Provers must stake BREV to receive orders and are slashed for failures or breaches.
• Production Integrations PancakeSwap Infinity has launched VIP fee hooks, powered by Brevis, that have generated 17.3 million proofs in six weeks. Linea used Brevis to distribute 1 billion LINEA tokens across 62,000 addresses, requiring 12.1 million proofs. Uniswap v4 router gas rebates, QuickSwap dynamic fees, and MetaMask’s 2.4% fixed-APR product are all live on Brevis infrastructure.

IV. Token Economics

• Token Utilities BREV serves as the economic backbone of the Brevis network. All proof generation, verification, and settlement fees are denominated in BREV. Provers must stake BREV or receive delegated stake to participate in auctions, with staking caps positively correlated with order capacity. Governance is also conducted in BREV, with on-chain voting used to adjust proof-size limits, security tiers, slashing ratios and market fees.
• Allocation and Unlock Schedule The total supply is 1,000,000,000 BREV, with allocations of 37% to ecosystem development, 32.2% to community rewards, 20% to the team, and 10.8% to investors. Team and investor allocations are subject to a one-year cliff followed by a 36-month linear vesting schedule. Ecosystem and community tokens are distributed through proof mining, airdrop,s and liquidity incentives, with emissions dynamically adjusted based on network utilization rather than a fixed cap.
• Value Capture Each proof auction charges a 3% platform fee, of which 50% is burned, and 50% is directed to the ecosystem treasury. In addition, 100% of the stake slashed from misbehaving provers is burned. As proof demand increases, more BREV is locked for payments and staking, while more tokens are permanently removed from circulation, creating usage-driven deflationary pressure.

V. Team & Investors

• Core Team Michael, Founder and CEO, is a former engineering director at a Silicon Valley hardware-acceleration company and a frequent speaker on zkVM architecture at venues including Bankless and Web3 Scholars.
• Funding In November 2024, Brevis closed a USD 7.5 million seed round co-led by Polychain Capital and YZi Labs (formerly Binance Labs), with participation from IOSG, HashKey, Bankless Ventures, and Nomad Capital. In October 2025, the project conducted a pre-list community round at a USD 460 million valuation, with the additional amount undisclosed.

VI. Roadmap

• 2026 Q1 Brevis will launch the ProverNet Beta mainnet, enabling permissionless participation by GPU and CPU nodes, and introduce BREV staking delegation, allowing token holders to share in proof-generation revenues.
• 2026 Q2 Pico Prism v2 will be released, adding support for multi-proof-system recursion across Plonk and STARK and targeting an average proof time below six seconds on a 48-GPU cluster. Brevis will also partner with EigenLayer to introduce restaked security modules, reducing prover slashing risk.
• 2026 Q3 Brevis will integrate a Bitcoin light client, enabling BTC historical-data proofs, and will launch a zkML coprocessor capable of producing model-inference proofs at the seven-billion-parameter LLM level.
• 2026 Q4 The Brevis Chain mainnet will go live as a fully independent gas layer supporting third-party proof-market deployments, alongside the release of a DAO framework that transfers control over fees, burn ratios and slashing parameters to community governance.

VII. Risks & Opportunities

• Opportunities Demand for zero-knowledge infrastructure is structurally expanding as Layer-2 scaling, AI inference, cross-chain messaging, paymasters and DeFi subsidies all require large volumes of provable computation. Brevis holds a real-time proving performance lead, with Pico Prism being the first zkVM to meet the Ethereum Foundation’s under-ten-second benchmark on consumer hardware, creating a strong network-effect moat. In addition, ProverNet addresses a major market gap by providing the first decentralized bilateral-auction network capable of supporting heterogeneous proofs and composite pipelines, enabling idle GPU and FPGA capacity worldwide to be aggregated into a global ZK compute market.
• Risks Zero-knowledge technology evolves rapidly, with STARK, SNARK, and folding schemes advancing quickly, requiring continuous R&D investment to remain competitive. Token price volatility is another risk, as proof demand is closely tied to on-chain activity, which may decline in bear markets. Centralized cloud providers such as AWS or Google Cloud could enter the space with managed ZK services, potentially pressuring pricing and usability. Finally, regulatory uncertainty regarding privacy-preserving transactions and cryptographic proofs could pose compliance or adoption risks in certain jurisdictions.

VIII. Conclusion

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