Vitalik: ZK Payments Could Become the Next Global Standard

According to FinanceFeeds, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin stated in a research article that ZK payments could become the next key standard for the global digital economy. He emphasized that for crypto payments to achieve mass adoption, they must shift from "pseudonymity" to "default privacy," especially in the upcoming era of agents. Vitalik proposed replacing standard transfers with transactions based on ZK proofs, enabling users to validate payment effectiveness without revealing their full balance or transaction history. Vitalik's vision particularly focuses on the needs of AI agents, allowing them to pay service fees without leaving a traceable footprint. By leveraging recursive SNARKs and ZK APIs with credits, Ethereum Layer 2 solutions can process private payments at the same speed and cost as transparent transactions.