How Does the Overhead of Proof Generation Impact Transaction Fees?

The high computational overhead of generating a zero-knowledge proof translates directly into higher transaction fees for the user, especially on a Layer 1 blockchain. The cost is generally borne by the prover (often the user or a Rollup sequencer).

However, in scaling solutions like ZK-Rollups, this overhead is amortized across a large batch of transactions, making the per-transaction fee significantly lower.