RISC Zero (R0VM)
zkVM (RISC-V)
RISC Zero (R0VM): zkVM (RISC-V). Kind: zkVM (RISC-V). Arithmetisation / backend: FRI/STARK + Groth16 wrapper. Setup: Wrapper only. Maintained by: RISC Zero. Licence: Apache-2.0. Status: Production; longest track record; 3.x line in 2026. Choose it when: Teams wanting the most operationally complete RISC-V zkVM today, including off-the-shelf outsourced proving, and who value documentation and stability over peak prover speed.
What it is
One of the earliest general-purpose RISC-V zkVMs, based on FRI/STARK with a Groth16 wrapper for on-chain verification. Ships an unusually complete operational surface: local proving, hosted remote proving, and a live decentralised proof market.
Strengths and tradeoffs
- Longest continuous production history among RISC-V zkVMs, with a large and mature documentation surface
- An end-to-end operational path, including outsourced proving, rather than a prover alone
- Runs adversarial analysis tooling as part of its own workflow
- Historically slower than the fastest competitor on comparable benchmarks, partly a deliberate security-parameter tradeoff rather than an implementation gap
- Major versions turn over quickly — R0VM 2.0 in 2025, a 3.x line in 2026 — and each changes the circuit and the verifier, so pin a release and treat every major upgrade as a re-audit trigger
- The Groth16 wrapper inherits a trusted setup
Choose it whenTeams wanting the most operationally complete RISC-V zkVM today, including off-the-shelf outsourced proving, and who value documentation and stability over peak prover speed.
Related pages
Sources cited on this page · 9
- SP1 — RISC-V zkVMproject
- RISC Zero R0VM — zkVMproject
- RISC Zero trusted setup ceremony rationaledocumentation
- RISC Zero remote proving — hosted proving documentationdocumentation
- ZKsync Airbender — RISC-V prover for ZKsync OS, with benchmark harnessproject
- Zisk — Polygon's RISC-V zkVMproject
- Pico — Brevis's modular RISC-V zkVMproject
- Nexus zkVM — source-available RISC-V zkVMproject
- RISC-V architectural certification teststest suite
All 45 sources for §02 are listed on the section page →
Cite this page
MarketComp (2026). RISC Zero (R0VM). The ZK Field Manual (Version 1.3). MarketComp. https://zkpick.com/frameworks/risc-zero/
@misc{zkfieldmanual-risc-zero-r0vm,
title = {RISC Zero (R0VM) — The ZK Field Manual},
author = {MarketComp},
year = {2026},
version = {1.3},
howpublished = {\url{https://zkpick.com/frameworks/risc-zero/}},
note = {Accessed: YYYY-MM-DD}
}