Recently, with the launch of zkSync 2.0, the zk series expansion plan has ushered in another wave of climax. Additionally, following last month’s Devcon in Bogotá, there have been many “new” voices emerging in the zkEVM space.
For example, zkSync has been hyping itself up as “the world’s first fully functional open-source zkEVM network,” which has been criticized by people including Steven Goldfeder, co-founder and CEO of Arbitrum development company OffChain Labs, who said that this zkEVM testnet does not have zk-proofs enabled and has not undergone a security audit. This hype does no one any good and is still a long way from being truly realized.
When Polygon zkEVM was officially launched during Devcon in Bogota, it also claimed to be "the first and only decentralized zkEVM testnet", but it quickly attracted criticism from the community: Although the source code of the Polygon zkEVM prover (zk prover) is available on Github , but there is no open source license; although it states that it is "completely equivalent", its Github code base shows that it has only measured 97% compatibility coverage for the time being. In response, the Polygon team responded, "There is no deliberate concealment, and some of the content is being written to create better documentation."
In addition, Scroll also announced a Pre-Alpha testnet upgrade during Devcon in Bogota and opened testing to whitelist users. According to the plan, StarkWare launched an upgraded version of Cairo at the end of September. Cairo 1.0 will also be officially launched before the end of the year.
Stimulated by the Aptos airdrop, the recent strong narrative of the L2 zk series has indeed attracted a large number of users. However, compared with the OP system expansion plan, which has a relatively mature ecology, the zk system may seem lively on the surface, but it will take a long time to truly prosper. The current ecology is still relatively weak, and the development cycle of zk technology is longer, which is very difficult for developers. There is a certain threshold with the project side. So, instead of arguing about "the first zkEVM", let's keep building.
This article sorts out the development progress, ecological details, etc. of the four major protocols of the zk series: StarkWare, zkSync, Polygon zkEVM and Scroll, and will give you a comprehensive understanding of the real situation of the currently hot zkEVM track.
1. Starkware
1 Introduction:
StarkWare is the project with the strongest team in the zk series expansion plan. The co-founder Eli Ben-Sasson is the world's top cryptography scientist and the co-inventor of zkSNARK and zkSTARK. The co-founder and CEO Uri Kolodny graduated from Heber I majored in computer science in college and am also a serial entrepreneur. StarkWare is currently valued at $8 billion.
StarkWare currently develops two products: StarkEx for ToB and StarkNet for ToC. StarkEx is an independent licensed Validity-Rollup (validity proof) that sells customized technology engine services StarkEx and charges service fees directly from customers with expansion needs. Currently, it has served dYdX, ImmutableX, Sorare, DeversiFi, rhino.fi, and ApeX , Myria and other customers; StarkNet is a permissionless decentralized zk-Rollup open to everyone. It uses the zkSTARK certification system and supports independent deployment of dApps.
The basic smart contract language used by StarkNet is not Solidity, but the Turing-complete zero-knowledge proof system language Cairo, which itself is not compatible with EVM. The team has been seeking zkEVM compatibility. At the end of October, StarkWare announced the launch of zkEVM (named "Kakarot") based on Cairo. However, the actual development is still in the early stages and has not been implemented.
Additionally, Ethereum development team Nethermind is building a Solidity-Cairo “compiler” that will allow projects written in Solidity to “one-click” translate their codebases to Cairo. It is reported that this "compiler" is still under development, and once effective, it will enable StarkNet to achieve a similar level of EVM compatibility as zkSync 2.0. Nethermind has been working on code translation and previously launched the Uniswap Warp version on the StarkNet network.
2. Progress:
As one of the earliest developers in the zk-Rollup field, StarkNet’s Alpha version was launched on the mainnet in November 2021.
StarkWare launched Cairo 1.0, an upgraded version of Cairo, at the end of September. It is expected to be officially launched before the end of 2022. The new version language improves the network's DoS attack protection capabilities and reduces gas fees, supports StarkNet's permissionless network requirements, and will simplify and protect the protocol. At that time, the team will also restart StarkNet on the Ethereum mainnet called "Regensis".
Currently, StarkNet is launching a second testnet on Goerli and launching a call for naming proposals from the community. The new testnet is mainly for developers to test applications and is not in the public beta stage.
In addition, StarkWare announced token economics in July. The native token was previously scheduled to be released in September, but the team postponed the release due to technical reasons. The initial issuance of StarkNet tokens is 10 billion, 17% is allocated to StarkWare investors, 32.9% is allocated to core contributors, and 51% is allocated to the foundation (12% of which is used to fund the development, testing, deployment and maintenance of the StarkNet protocol research and work). However, officials stated that free tokens will not be provided to users in the initial stage, and all tokens will be locked immediately after release.
3. Ecology:
The StarkNet ecosystem is mainly based on DeFi, GameFi, and NFT. More than a hundred projects have been deployed on StarkNet. However, in fact, some projects are still in the planning and deployment stage, and there are not many projects that can truly interact. According to L2beat data, the current total locked position of StarkNet is 3.1 million US dollars, the average daily TPS is 0.15, and the 30-day transaction count is approximately 279,000.
Wallets: Argent X, Braavos (recently completed a $10 million round led by Pantera Capital)
Cross-chain bridge: Orbiter Finance, the official Ethereum-Starknet cross-chain bridge StarkGate
DeFi：
10KSwap: StarkNet’s native AMM DEX protocol has been launched on the main network. Currently, only ETH, USDC, DAI, WBTC, and USDT can be traded.
Alpha Road Finance: StarkNet native DEX and liquidity staking protocol, currently in beta.
Brine Finance: Order book trading DEX, still on testnet.
Fibrous Finance: AMM aggregator on StarkNet, still running on testnet.
mySwap: The first AMM DEX on StarkNet.
zkLend: The lending protocol on StarkNet, including two products Artemis (for DeFI users) and Apollo (for institutions, small and medium-sized enterprises, etc.).
GameFi: Loot Realms, GoL2, and The Ninth are now available on the mainnet.
2. zksync
1 Introduction:
zkSync was founded by Matter Labs in December 2019. It was founded later than StarkWare. It uses zk-Rollup technology based on SNARK proof and supports zkEVM at the IR level.
Matter Labs released zkSync v1.0 in June 2020, and it took a long time to go online. It was not until February this year that the zkSync 2.0 testnet was launched. zkSync 2.0 has greatly improved functionality compared to previous versions. In zkSync 1.0, users can only experience basic functions such as transfer and NFT casting, while zkSync 2.0 will not only support EVM compatibility but also open up the deployment of ecological applications, making it a truly complete version of the zk-Rollup product.
2. Progress:
On October 28, zkSync 2.0 was officially launched and stated that it is currently in the Baby Alpha stage. During this stage, zkSync 2.0 will be launched on the mainnet without external projects, mainly for stress testing and multiple security work. Developers cannot access the mainnet, but can continue to develop on the testnet. The Baby Alpha stage will last about a month.
According to the official roadmap, the fourth quarter (after Baby Alpha) will enter the Fair Launch Alpha stage. The team will open project deployment rights to developers. The team plans to achieve the goal of fully launching Alpha by the end of this year, but this may be postponed due to security reasons. Phase one was extended to 2023. Then after a series of comprehensive testing, security audits, competitions and bug bounties, zkSync 2.0 will be open to all users, which is also the closest time to the coin issuance. More than 150 projects have committed to launching on zkSync 2.0.
In terms of token issuance, Matter Labs chief product officer Steve Newcomb said in a Twitter Spaces discussion that zkSync will announce details of its token economic model in the first week of November. On November 3, zkSync co-founder Alex G hinted that “some big news is coming.”
3. Ecology
According to statistics from the zkSync ecological official website, more than 100 projects have been deployed on the network. According to L2beat data, the current total locked position is 6.27 million US dollars, the average daily TPS is 0.37, and the 30-day transaction count is 1.38 million.
Wallet: Argent
Cross-chain bridge:
Orbiter Finance (currently only supports zkSync1.0 and does not yet support zkSync 2.0 testnet)
zkSync2.0 test network official cross-chain bridge address: https://portal.zksync.io/bridge (also supports other functions such as wallet transfer and test currency collection)
DeFi：
SyncSwap: DEX based on zkSync, has been launched on the zkSync 2.0 network.
Increment: It is a decentralized algorithm perpetual contract protocol based on zkSync 2.0. It was recently released on the zkSync 2.0 test network. However, it is currently only open to users who previously applied for the whitelist test, and now the registration deadline has passed.
SpaceFi: It is a cross-chain web3 platform on Evmos and zkSync, currently running on the zkSync 2.0 testnet.
Zigzag: is an order book DEX powered by zk Rollup, currently only supports zksync1.0 network
Sprintcheckout: Crypto payment platform, currently running on the zkSync 2.0 testnet.
NFT：
MintSquare is an NFT marketplace on Ethereum L2 ZK Rollups (StarkNet and zkSync), currently running on StarkNet, StarkNet testnet, and zkSync 2.0 testnet.
In addition, Aave V3, Uniswap V3, 1KX Protocol Beta and other protocols have been planned to be deployed on the zkSync 2.0 test network.
三、Polygon Hermez（Polygon zkEVM ）
1 Introduction:
In July 2021, the Hermez team announced the development of zkEVM (Hermez 2.0), which is fully compatible with Ethereum. Later, Polygon announced the acquisition of Hermez for $250 million. Polygon zkEVM uses zk-Rollup technology based on SNARK proof.
Polygon zkEVM has opcode level compatibility. In the article "Vitalik: The Future of Different Types of ZK-EVM", Vitalik ranks Polygon zkEVM as the third level alongside Scroll, and is at the forefront of the current ZK Rollup in terms of EVM compatibility.
In recent publicity, Polygon has been emphasizing that its zkEVM is the "only decentralized zk-rollup" because it first realized the open source of zk Prover, including a complete ZK proof system with available source code, and promised to be completely open source and powered by Community-driven, permissionless network of coordinators, decentralized auction model with verification reward tokens.
2. Progress:
Polygon zkEVM will launch a permissionless public testnet on October 10. Aave, Uniswap, Web3 social platform Lens and game studio Midnight Society will be the first protocols deployed on the zkEVM testnet. Currently, the testnet is mainly open to developers. Polygon zkEVM plans to launch the mainnet in the first half of 2023.
In addition, Polygon zkEVM made it clear that it has no plans to issue coins for the time being, and ETH will be used to pay gas fees. MATIC will be used for staking and governance of Polygon zkEVM.
4. Scroll
1 Introduction:
Founded in 2021, Scroll completed a $30 million Series A round of funding late last year. Similar to Polygon zkEVM, Scroll is also committed to creating an EVM-equivalent zk-Rollup, and is superior in compatibility. It is known as the most EVM-compatible zk-Rollup, allowing applications on Ethereum to be almost seamlessly migrated to the second generation. layer network. Compatibility at the bytecode level can achieve compatibility with all languages on Ethereum, and can also be compatible with tools on Ethereum, which greatly reduces the difficulty of development on the second-layer network.
It is worth mentioning that since Scroll co-founder Ye Zhang has considerable experience in ZKP hardware acceleration, Scroll plans to use hardware acceleration in ZKP to further improve verification efficiency, establish a decentralized verification network, and distribute ZKP proofs to Participants perform calculations and aggregate the results to form a final proof. The decentralized verification network will be open to everyone and will set up incentive and punishment mechanisms.
2. Progress:
On October 11, Scroll released an upgraded version of the Pre-Alpha test network. There are already some pre-deployed applications such as Uniswap v2, which allow users to perform some functions such as transfers between L1 and L2, but at this stage, user registration applications are still required. You must join the whitelist to participate in the test. However, due to the emergence of a large number of bots, the official has temporarily slowed down the review of test applications and tightened the list access. Therefore, many users have reported in the community that they have not received email replies. The community recommends changing wallet addresses and email addresses to reapply. .
Scroll encountered severe cross-chain delays during the testnet, and was unable to access the testnet tokens in the faucet. The official response was that this was caused by severe congestion in Ethereum.
In addition, officials stated that a permissionless testnet will be launched in a few weeks. The Alpha testnet allows anyone to interact on the testnet, and developers can also deploy contracts on the network without permission. The full testnet is expected to be launched by the end of this year.
Ecologically, projects such as the Web3 social protocol Lens Protocol and the oracle RedStone have recently been deployed to the pre-alpha test network of the Ethereum expansion project Scroll.
summary:
Overall, although StarkWare and zkSync represent the ultimate implementation of zkEVM, they are not bytecode-level compatible after all and require developers to translate and migrate codes. Therefore, in comparison, Polygon zkEVM and Scroll will be closer to the Ethereum ecosystem.
However, EVM compatibility is not the only criterion for judging the quality of L2 expansion solutions. It is only used as an objective indicator. In fact, the fully equivalent EVM, although secure, may sacrifice some efficiency, and Starkware's Cario predicts that the built virtual machine and Zksync's virtual machine will be more flexible in building zk.
Therefore, there is no essential difference between these protocols, and they are still in the early stages of development. In addition to ensuring security, the later developer experience and user experience are more important.