Written by: Yinan

zksync:

zkSync is an Ethereum Layer 2 public chain that uses zero-knowledge rollup (ZK rollup) technology to solve Ethereum's current scalability issues. Its mission is to increase Ethereum's throughput and fully maintain its fundamental values ​​- freedom, autonomy, and decentralization - at scale.

In zkSync, computations are performed off-chain and most data is stored off-chain. Since all transactions are proven on the Ethereum mainchain, users enjoy the same level of security as Ethereum.

zkSync 1.0 — zkSync Lite launched on Ethereum mainnet on June 15, 2020

A transaction throughput of about 300 TPS was achieved, but it is not compatible with EVM.

zkSync 2.0 — zkSync Era was launched on March 24, 2023. First, it enables arbitrary smart contract functionality by supporting Solidity (via zkEVM) and Zinc (rollup’s internal programming language); second, through zkPorter — a protocol that combines zkRollups and sharding, throughput grows exponentially to 20,000+ TPS.

The main differences between zkSync 1.0 and zkSync 2.0: Smart Contract Support: zkSync 1.0 focuses mainly on simplified payment and asset transfer scenarios, without supporting Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible smart contracts. In contrast, zkSync 2.0 provides full support for EVM-compatible smart contracts, which means that developers can easily deploy existing Ethereum smart contracts to zkSync 2.0. Composability: zkSync 1.0 only supports limited cross-contract interactions, while zkSync 2.0 improves inter-protocol interoperability by retaining key EVM features such as smart contract composability. This makes zkSync 2.0 more suitable for building complex decentralized financial (DeFi) applications. Account Abstraction: zkSync 2.0 introduces a new feature of account abstraction, which simplifies the interaction between users and smart contracts. Account abstraction allows users to interact with smart contracts using any signature scheme, thereby improving the user experience. More powerful development tools: zkSync 2.0 comes with a full set of development tools, including CLI (command line interface) and SDK (software development kit), making it easier for developers to build and deploy zkSync-based applications. zksync era features: Ethereum and ERC20 token transfers have instant confirmation and fast finality on L1. Transaction fees for ERC20 tokens and Ethereum transfers on the mainnet are very low. It is easy to use the tokens being transferred to pay existing Ethereum addresses (including smart contracts). zksync era highlights: Mainnet-level security without relying on third parties. Permissionless EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) compatible smart contracts. Standard Web3 API. Retains key EVM features such as the composability of smart contracts. Introduces new features such as account abstraction. Team:

Matter labs is the company behind zkSync, a German company founded in 2018 by CEO Alex G. that has grown to over 50 employees. The team is made up of experienced developers, researchers, and entrepreneurs, as well as core members such as Zoe Gadsden (COO), Ankur Rakshit (CFO), Steve Newcomb (CPO), and Shazia Hasan in communications. Together, they are creating a more efficient, cost-effective, and secure way to transact on Ethereum.

CEO: Alex Gluchowski - He has over 15 years of experience as a developer and continues to grow as a CTO and entrepreneur. He is passionate about personal freedom, self-ownership, and decentralization.

COO: Zoe Gadsden---Zoe is a former Google employee with 10+ years of growth and product leadership

CFO: Ankur Rakshit---15 years of experience in the financial sector, previously served as Head of Financial Planning and Analysis at Kraken.

CPO: Steve Newcomb---A successful entrepreneur and product manager with over 15 years of experience in the industry and accelerator programs.

Marketing and Communications Executive: Shazia Hasan - with various experience in finance and communications

Thanks to their diverse backgrounds, the team is able to master several key aspects of building a blockchain and running a company, which are very important points as the project aims for widespread adoption.

Financing:

Matter Labs has raised $258 million in five funding rounds since 2018, with BitDAO providing an additional $200 million in funding commitments in five tranches of $40 million to bootstrap the zkSync ecosystem.

$200 million Series C round led by Dragonfly and Blockchain Capital in November 2022 $200 million commitment from BitDAO in January 2022 $50 million Series B round led by a16z in November 2021 $6 million Series A round led by Union Square Ventures in February 2021 $2 million Seed round led by Placeholder in September 2019

BitDAO’s $200 million funding commitment will play a major role in the development of the ecosystem. The DAO is committed to expanding the zkSync ecosystem through active funding in various areas:

70% of the funds will be used for strategic capital investments in areas such as DeFi, NFTs, gaming, privacy, interoperability, and even providing liquidity. 7.5% of the funds will be allocated to grants for the development of tools to migrate from L1 to L2 to accelerate adoption and encourage further investment and research by industry players. 7.5% of the funds will be used to fund the hiring of security audit firms to ensure the security of the ecosystem and create security knowledge and standards. 5% of the funds will be allocated to R&D to improve zkProofs and related technologies 5% of the funds will be allocated to education and training on the opportunities provided by the technology and its impact 5% of the funds will be used for operations such as legal setup, compliance, and payroll.

Investments will be selected by the decision-making committee based on the goals and objectives identified in Phase 1. These milestones may include the number of investments made, grants awarded, the impact of public goods funded, contributions to the DAO’s core tools, and any other metrics the Steering Committee and Funding Team decide to include.

route map

Currently in the Fair Onboarding Alpha stage, zksync 2.0 mainnet launch stage

The next stage will be, Layer 3 concepts

Layer 2 is the first step to achieve scalability, developer experience, and user experience. zkSync's EVM-compatible Layer 3 proof-of-concept "Opportunity" will debut in the first quarter of 2023, bringing a series of 10x growth moments to Ethereum. It will provide:

A Layer 3 HyperChain prototype built on top of Layer 2 to enable the ecosystem to conduct research and experimentation. Development of developer tools, including a CLI and SDK for creating and interacting with Layer 3, has begun.

The final result will be: decentralization

In order to support the mission of Ethereum, the zkSync 2.0 protocol will be decentralized, including proof generation, block production, and transaction verification. We are already thinking about how to decentralize various parts of the system, and will provide clear instructions on how to run a node.

Token Economics

As of now, according to The Block, Matter Labs CEO Alex Gluchowski said in an interview about tokens:

The launch of ZkSync Era will not initially come with a token, as the network is still largely centralized. Since it is in the alpha stage, Matter Labs can upgrade the network's code at will. In addition, the company still controls the sequencer and attestor, two core components of the network's operation.

"There is no need for a token at this point. As soon as you want to decentralize a sequencer, you need a token. Everything has to have a purpose and a reason. For permissionless participation in a validator set, we don't have anything better than a token right now — like how do you make it permissionless. But for now, because we're on this sequencer, it's not necessary," Gluchowski said.

He estimates that the sequencer will be decentralized in about a year. This means that the tokens may be released in about a year.

ecosystem

Matter Labs claims that more than 150 projects have been deployed or are willing to be deployed on the chain, but there are not so many that can actually be used at present. On lite there are banxa, zigzag, etc., and those that have been synchronized with Era include mute, mint square, spacefi, orbiter, syncswap, etc.

TVL

It can be seen on defillama that as of the time of posting, the overall TVL has increased by 400% in the past 7 days. The total locked amount of zksync is currently 50 million US dollars, and Syncswap alone accounts for nearly 50% of the total locked amount, which is a very fast growth rate. TVL is still far behind Arbitrum's 2.5 billion and Optimism's 1 billion. Of course, this is related to the project ecology and the technology used. Currently, there are more than 100 projects on arb and op, while zksync currently has only a few applications on Era. arb and op both use optimistic Rollup, while zksync and starknet both use zk Rollup, and the technical difficulty of the latter is higher than that of the former.

Summarize

First of all, zksync is quite eye-catching in terms of both the team and project financing. The technology used is also zk-rollup. Due to the technical characteristics of zk, the development difficulty is higher, but its security is higher. In the long run, zk-rollup will be the mainstream in the future. In terms of project ecology, there is a big gap between zksync and Arb and OP. The previous 1.0 is not compatible with EVM, and the Ethereum ecosystem cannot be migrated well. At present, 2.0 Era has become compatible with EVM after its launch, so Ethereum ecological applications can be migrated more easily. I believe that zksync will have a good performance in the future, and I look forward to the subsequent development of zksync.