Cysic shifts focus to AI inference as ZK proving demand fades

The decentralized compute network is pointing its GPU fleet at large language models after layer 2 fees rose above Ethereum's own Cysic built a business around generating zero-knowledge proofs for Ethereum layer 2 networks. Now it is pointing that same hardware at AI. The decentralized compute network has moved its focus from layer 2 proving to AI inference. The reason is a familiar one: demand for its original product fell, and layer 2 fees climbed above the fees on Ethereum itself. From proofs to prompts A zero-knowledge proof is a cryptographic receipt. It lets one party show that a computation was done correctly without anyone having to redo the work. Layer 2 networks lean on these proofs to bundle transactions and settle them on Ethereum. Generating the proofs takes serious computing power, and that is the job Cysic signed up for. AI inference is a different workload. It is the moment a trained model actually answers a question, the part of the process users see when a chatbot replies. Both jobs eat GPUs. That overlap is what makes Cysic’s pivot workable rather than a total reinvention. According to CEO Leo Fan, the plan is to put the company’s existing hardware to work on lar...