Vitalik Buterin stated: Stop just bragging about "processing N transactions in seconds"; this is how to reliably assess Cryptography performance.

Ethereum founder Vitalik recently expressed a viewpoint that directly hit a common issue in the Web3 development community — performance metrics are misleading.

The core point he made is: For cryptographic solutions like ZK and FHE, developers should report performance using “cost coefficient” instead of that outdated “TPS” marketing tactic.

What is the expense ratio? Simply put, it is:

Cryptographic computation time ÷ Native computation time = Overhead coefficient

For example, if an operation originally takes 1 second, after using ZK proof it takes 10 seconds, then the coefficient is 10 times.

Why is this standard more reliable?

1. Strong hardware independence — Data like “N ops/sec” heavily relies on the running environment, and changing the server alters the numbers. The coefficient, on the other hand, is a purely mathematical relationship and has universality.

2. Developer Friendly — You already know the original performance benchmark of your business, and you can easily calculate the cost by multiplying a coefficient. No longer will you be deceived by the absolute numbers from vendors.

3. True Reflection of Cost —— This coefficient intuitively shows the cost you pay to obtain cryptographic features/privacy. It's clear whether it's worth exchanging trust for efficiency.

Vitalik's criticism actually points out that many projects like to report astronomical TPS numbers to create a false impression of “performance explosion,” but this is of little reference value for actual users. What really matters is understanding the privacy cost ratio.

This proposal serves as a wake-up call for the entire cryptography application community: stop boasting to each other and speak with actual coefficients.