Why does constant-time ZK proof verification matter for Kaspa's base layer?

With many ZK proof systems, a proof can be verified in constant time regardless of how complex the underlying computation was — meaning Kaspa's base layer does the same amount of verification work whether the off-chain program was simple or extremely intensive. In traditional computation, checking a result takes roughly as long as doing the work from scratch. ZK proofs break that assumption: a compact proof can attest to an arbitrarily complex program's correct execution, and verifying it takes the same time either way. This property is what makes it practical to verify intensive computations on-chain at all. For Kaspa, it means that a Layer 2 batching thousands of transactions can be settled on the base layer efficiently, without burdening every network node with replaying the full computation.