Buzzwords include: succinct universal proofs, zkVM, incrementally verifiable computation, distributed supercomputer and agentic AI
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Nexus is billing itself as “the world supercomputer.” The L1’s ambitions are on full display as it churns through its final testnet ahead of mainnet launch, slated for later this year.
Anyone can join the network in a few clicks from any device, contributing compute power to help build what Nexus calls “a verifiable world.”
What is a “world supercomputer,” you might ask? It’s a novel approach, according to CEO and founder Daniel Marin:
“The goal there is to build the largest distributed computer system ever, and part of the reason we’re doing that is because we’re trying to aggregate computing power to build a blockchain with a new architecture,” Marin told Blockworks.
Nexus combines familiar ideas from other cutting-edge chains but integrates them into a single, opinionated layer-1.
Like Mina Protocol, Nexus aims to condense all blockchain states into a single succinct proof — but while Mina uses recursive SNARKs for constant-size proofs, Nexus relies on its RISC-V-based zkVM to handle vastly more complex workloads, including AI inference. Its choice of a RISC-V zkVM is reminiscent of RISC Zero, enabling general-purpose Rust code to be proven verifiably, but Nexus makes this VM a native part of its chain, not just a service layer. Ethereum itself may eventually go in this direction.
For data availability, Nexus’ planned sampling approach echoes Celestia’s modular DA model, while its consensus will evolve from the current and commonly used CometBFT (formerly Tendermint) toward HotStuff-2, making it similar to Aptos or Sui. These consensus protocols provide fast finality — in Nexus’ case, coordinating globally distributed proving tasks.
Nexus then bakes in a decentralized compute cloud directly into its L1, turning every connected device into part of a single, verifiable computer built around an Incrementally Verifiable Computation (IVC) machine. The VM generates succinct proofs for every computation step, integrates those proofs via DAG-style propagation, and aggregates them into a single Universal Proof. Nexus uses the Stwo (Circle STARK) prover.
That’s a lot of buzzwords, but the TL;DR is this architecture theoretically enables horizontal scalability — each added node increases network throughput.
On the cryptography front, Nexus touts the involvement of heavyweight figures like Jens Groth and Michel Abdalla, fortifying its credentials in zero‑knowledge and blockchain research.
And it’s not all theory. Last week, Nexus activated its third and final testnet, and its mainnet is targeted for Q3.
Nexus claims over 2.1 million unique users across its various testnets, backed up by Sybil detection. About 4,000 accounts are active today, Nexus’ block explorer shows.
For Marin, Nexus exists to break out of blockchains’ limitations “because it’s impossible to build any meaningful application today.”
Marin said: “Our hypothesis from the very start of the company is that coding on a blockchain or coding on a zkVM should feel indistinguishable from coding on your own computer.”
The protocol is optimizing for speed, not decentralization.
“We want to be decentralized in the long term, [but] we don’t want to be decentralized right now at all, and in fact, pretty much the opposite,” Marin continued. “So it’s a little bit of a philosophical take that will piss off some people.”
In the near term, the Nexus team is targeting quarterly releases, gunning for the trendy objective of being infrastructure for the AI era.
“We want users to feel like, ‘Wow, we’re building the future. We’re part of a community and a network, I can see other apps in the ecosystem, I can do quests and have fun,'” Marin said.
