Zircuit has grown rapidly over the past year. Its next goal is to become a "Cognitive Blockchain," which aims to fully automate security and financial aspects through AI—elements that builders and users previously had to manage themselves—allowing users to focus safely on financial activities.
To achieve this, Zircuit is developing its own AI agent and upgrading its current Sequencer Level Security (SLS) to version 3.0, enhancing security analysis at both the transaction and block levels. This will provide a safer blockchain environment for both users and builders.
Rather than solely focusing on user experience and yield, Zircuit prioritizes AI-driven security, enabling builders to concentrate on development by utilizing an SDK that includes SLS. This proactive AI-based security strategy sets Zircuit apart and is expected to introduce a new paradigm in the successful convergence of AI and blockchain.
It has been one year since Zircuit began its operations through Ethereum liquid staking and liquid restaking services. During this period, Zircuit launched its mainnet and achieved rapid growth, bringing in assets worth $354.34M (as of March 11, 2025) into its ecosystem.
Notably, Zircuit has adopted a hybrid approach that combines Optimistic Rollups and Zero-Knowledge Rollups, ensuring both efficiency and security while also enhancing sequencer security through AI-powered Sequencer Level Security (SLS). Additionally, Zircuit has successfully listed its native token, $ZRC, on multiple exchanges such as Bybit and Bitget, strengthening its liquidity.
At the beginning of the year, Zircuit unveiled its roadmap outlining its vision for the future. Having achieved steady growth over the past year, let’s explore Zircuit’s objectives for 2025 and beyond.
Until now, the DeFi ecosystem has largely relied on individual users’ knowledge and expertise. In the complex web of blockchain networks and services, users have typically navigated asset transfers and swaps based on their own learned methods. While faster and cheaper alternatives exist, accessing them often requires additional research and effort, leading users to stick to familiar processes due to habitual usage inertia.
However, with the rise of AI agents and the DeFAI (DeFi + AI) ecosystem in 2025, the way users interact with DeFi is expected to undergo a paradigm shift. DeFAI aims to automate and streamline the DeFi user experience, making it more efficient and accessible. For instance, services like Injective’s iAgent allow DeFi users to execute swaps through the most cost-effective and fastest routes using simple prompt commands.
Despite its advantages, the emergence of DeFAI introduces new security concerns. The increasing complexity of AI-driven transactions and the unpredictability of AI agents necessitate more sophisticated and robust security measures. Specifically, threats like prompt injection attacks, RAG poisoning, and AI agent jailbreaks highlight the urgent need for enhanced protection mechanisms.
Additionally, for DeFAI to achieve its goal of identifying the most cost-efficient and effective transaction routes, it requires seamless integration across multiple DeFi ecosystems. This means connecting and analyzing DeFi services across numerous blockchains rather than being confined to a single network.
Recognizing this trend, Zircuit has set its next goal: building an AI-powered financial automation hub—what it calls the “Cognitive Blockchain.”
Zircuit defines a Cognitive Blockchain as one that fully automates security and financial management through AI, removing the burden from builders and users so they can focus on financial activities with ease and safety.
For example, the blockchain will take measures to ensure that builders and users do not have to worry about security. When a builder operates a smart contract, AI will proactively detect and warn about security vulnerabilities. Additionally, when users exchange assets, AI will protect them in advance from hacks that could result in asset theft through malicious smart contracts.
Zircuit has outlined the following roadmap to achieve its vision of becoming a Cognitive Blockchain.
1.2.1 Advancing AI-Powered Automated Finance
To drive AI-powered automated finance, Zircuit plans to develop its own AI agent for DeFAI. This agent is expected to include features such as automated trade execution, liquidity management, and optimal yield strategy execution. This marks the first step toward creating a one-stop platform that offers the best yield opportunities across all networks.
Since AI agents will need to execute numerous transactions across various platforms to find the best routes, high blockchain transaction fees could become a burden for users. To mitigate this, Zircuit plans to gradually transition from its hybrid rollup model to a full Zero-Knowledge Rollup (ZK Rollup) system. As part of this shift, Zircuit will upgrade its ZK prover to enhance blockchain efficiency, making it cheaper and faster.
Additionally, the only current method to transfer assets to the Zircuit network is through its native bridge, which may result in high gas fees when transferring between Ethereum and Zircuit. To address this, Zircuit plans to collaborate with partners like Rhino to provide faster and more cost-effective bridging solutions.
1.2.2 Advancing an AI-Powered Financial Hub
To create a broad and versatile environment for both users and AI agents, Zircuit is actively working on multi-chain support.
First, Zircuit plans to integrate Account Abstraction (AA), a concept formalized by EIP-4337. When combined with cross-chain technology, this will allow users to seamlessly move across multiple blockchain networks to find the best opportunities. In other words, even when users have assets deposited in Zircuit, they will still be able to easily trade on other blockchain networks.
Once this functionality is implemented, Zircuit aims to shift from users manually searching for optimal trading opportunities to AI agents automating these opportunities for them.
Furthermore, as this automated financial hub roadmap takes shape, the ecosystem is expected to grow significantly. Projects such as Gud Tech, Ocelex, Zuit, Dodo, Elara, and ZeroLend are already participating, and Zircuit plans to actively support the onboarding of even more applications in the future.
The primary reason users should choose Zircuit is the ability to operate without worrying about security. To achieve this, Zircuit plans to gradually upgrade its existing SLS (Sequencer Level Security) model to SLS 2.0 and eventually SLS 3.0.
These upgrades will expand beyond basic transaction monitoring to include detailed transaction-level analysis and block-level monitoring, enabling more sophisticated security assessments. This will allow the detection of complex attacks without compromising performance. Additionally, Zircuit aims to gradually expand the types of transactions that the SLS system can analyze.
To strengthen security, Zircuit will continue its collaboration with Hypernative, a project that provides security models capable of detecting and preempting on-chain and off-chain asset theft and threats. Thanks to Hypernative’s security model, Zircuit has achieved an impressive accuracy level, theoretically preventing 199 out of 200 hacks while maintaining a false positive rate of less than one in 10,000. With ongoing updates to this partnership, Zircuit expects to enhance security models to meet the advanced requirements of SLS 3.0.
Through these SLS enhancements, Zircuit plans to introduce features such as automated smart contract audits for cross-chain transactions, monitoring AI agents' positions and activities within DeFAI, and detecting signs of hacks or anomalies in transactions to trigger instant alerts or automated countermeasures. This will enable users to engage with the automated financial hub without security concerns.
By following this step-by-step roadmap, Zircuit is steadily progressing toward its vision of a Cognitive Blockchain, where security and financial services are fully automated.
One key takeaway from Zircuit’s DeFAI roadmap is that it does not prioritize higher yields, faster transaction speeds, or a more visually appealing UI/UX—instead, it puts security first.
According to Chainalysis, 303 hacking incidents occurred in 2024, leading to approximately $2.2 billion in stolen funds. While most projects focused on scaling transaction volume and onboarding more users, hackers continued to exploit vulnerabilities and profit.
To address this, Zircuit plans to upgrade SLS to version 3.0 in the future and establish a security system through AI starting from the blockchain infrastructure level, continually striving to evolve into a DeFAI platform that users can utilize with greater peace of mind.
When evaluating a blockchain, discussions often focus on user experience, leading to analyses skewed toward usability and convenience. However, an equally crucial component of any blockchain ecosystem is its builders—the developers who attract users and drive the ecosystem’s growth.
From a builder’s perspective, Zircuit is a game-changer that significantly reduces their security-related concerns. One of the biggest challenges for developers building smart contract-based dApps is security. Mistakes in code logic or development processes can expose vulnerabilities that hackers can exploit, leading to asset losses. Since no code is perfect, developers typically have to outsource security audits or conduct continuous security checks internally, both of which require significant resources in terms of manpower, cost, and time.
However, Zircuit has introduced an SLS-integrated Software Development Kit (SDK) that allows dApp developers to link their own security rules to SLS. This enables automatic transaction blocking under specific conditions and allows Zircuit’s SLS to proactively respond to potential threats by utilizing security event data from external blockchains. By minimizing the need for additional security resources, developers can allocate more time and effort toward enhancing features and improving user experience.
As a result, builders can rely on AI-driven security and focus entirely on development, while users benefit from a safer and more efficient blockchain ecosystem. This shift ultimately fosters a more secure and seamless DeFi environment, creating a positive impact across the industry.
Through its roadmap, Zircuit aims to establish itself as an AI-powered automated financial hub—a Cognitive Blockchain. Its core objective is to facilitate automated financial services for users, extend these capabilities across external blockchains, and proactively address security threats that may arise in the process.
What sets Zircuit apart is its commitment to shifting from reactive, patchwork-style security measures to a proactive, preventive security paradigm. Leveraging its expertise and technological advancements in security since launch, Zircuit seeks to eliminate vulnerabilities before they can be exploited, rather than merely responding to incidents after they occur.
This AI-driven security automation, which requires no manual intervention from builders or users, represents a differentiated strategy that is rarely seen in other blockchains. If successfully implemented within the DeFAI ecosystem, Zircuit could set a new precedent for AI utilization in the crypto space and lead emerging trends in blockchain security.
Ultimately, Zircuit’s roadmap presents an ambitious blueprint for a secure and intelligent blockchain. However, several technical and operational challenges must be addressed for this vision to become a reality. Decentralizing the SLS system and ensuring the reliability of the AI models remain critical hurdles. Additionally, in an industry that evolves at a rapid pace, Zircuit’s success will largely depend on how quickly and effectively it can implement its roadmap and deliver highly functional solutions. Watching this progress unfold will offer valuable insights into how AI and blockchain can merge to drive the next era of decentralized finance.
Related Articles, News, Tweets etc. :
https://www.zircuit.com/blog/zircuit-technical-roadmap-part-i-performant-provers
https://www.zircuit.com/blog/zircuit-technical-roadmap-part-ii-scaling-securely
https://www.zircuit.com/blog/zircuit-technical-roadmap-part-iii-future-proof-features
https://www.zircuit.com/blog/zircuit-product-ecosystem-roadmap-looking-ahead-to-2025-and-beyond
