The emergence of zkSync Era has reduced transaction costs by 50 times compared to before, and the zkSync ecosystem has shown an exponential growth trend; many ecosystems have deployed and migrated to the zkSync network, involving various fields such as DeFi, cross-chain bridges, and NFTs; the Ethereum network has been affected by the impossible Triangle problem, Layer 2 development is an inevitable trend;
About zkSync Era
With the launch of Arbitrum and SuiNetwork mainnets, the hottest dark horse mainnet in the entire network is now the zkSync Era network. On March 24 this year, zkSync officially announced that the zkSync Era network is officially open to all users. As one of the most supported projects in the encryption field, zkSync Era has raised more than $450 million from companies such as a16z, Dragonfly, and Lightspeed. The congestion and high transaction fees of the Ethereum network have made people more favorable to the Layer 2 expansion solution.
The $450 million in financing obtained by zkSync will have a significant impact on its own development and the chances of large-scale adoption. This year, many institutions are also developing zk-EVM, including Binance, Polygon, zksync, Starknet, Scroll, Aztec and Consensys, the parent company of Little Fox, which we are all familiar with.
What is zkSync Era
zkSync Era is a blockchain ecosystem based on zkSync technology, designed to enable high-performance, low-cost smart contracts and blockchain applications. zkSync Era is completely open source, and the code can be freely viewed, modified, and forked. zkSync 2.0 is now zkSync Era, and zkSync 1.0 is now zkSync Lite. The transaction cost is reduced by 50 times compared to before, and it crushes Ethereum at a speed of 2000 TPS. The high efficiency and low price of zkSync Era have attracted great attention from capital and continued to develop rapidly.
In the weeks since the release of zkSync Era and Polygon zkEVM, the zkSync ecosystem has seen rapid growth. By the end of Q1, the total locked value of the zkSync ecosystem was close to $200 million.
zkSync Era Advantages
zkSync is a protocol that uses zk-rollup technology to achieve high-performance expansion on the Ethereum mainnet, thereby achieving low-cost transactions and faster confirmation times. zkSync Era is built on the basis of the zkSync protocol. It has faster transaction speeds, higher scalability and more economical features, involving various fields such as DeFi, cross-chain bridges, NFT, etc.
Mainnet-level security, completely independent of third parties
zkSync Era will adopt a multi-layer security mechanism and be equipped with independent monitoring and risk mitigation mechanisms to ensure the security of the mainnet level. Unlike other custody layer solutions, zkSync Era is not only decentralized, but also completely independent of third parties, which means that users can control their own digital assets without worrying about their assets being attacked by centralized third-party service agencies. zkSync Era also has the characteristics of on-chain verification and immutability, providing a high level of security.
Powerful LLVM compiler
LLVM is one of the most mature compiler technologies in the world. Using the LLVM compiler can lead to significant performance gains and improved developer experience. On Era, developers can take advantage of the LLVM compiler to achieve efficient compilation and execution of smart contracts.
Supported EVM features, introducing new features
zkSync Era supports permissionless EVM-compatible smart contracts, which means that anyone can publish and interact with smart contracts without the permission of a third-party centralized institution. Developers can redeploy Ethereum L1 projects on zkSync 2.0, as long as the code does not involve the deployment of a new smart contract, without the trouble of changing the underlying base code.
At the same time, zkSync Era also introduces new features such as account abstraction. Account abstraction allows zkSync users to use a variety of assets, including ETH and ERC 20 tokens, to trade in a scalable and efficient way, which not only improves user flexibility but also reduces transaction costs and time.
Differences between zkSync, zkSync Era, and ZK EVM
zkSync is a zk Rollup solution that is highly compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). Its biggest advantage is that zkSync allows developers to use Solidity, the development language of Ethereum smart contracts, to deploy their applications in a low-cost and highly scalable Layer environment, while increasing its TPS without affecting security and decentralization. It can process tens of thousands of transactions per second and reduce gas fees by about 99%.
zkSync 2.0 is zkSync ERA, which allows more DAPPs on the Ethereum mainnet to migrate to the Era mainnet more conveniently. For example, AAVA and Uniswap have migrated to the ERA mainnet. The emergence of zkSync Era is beneficial to the development of the entire zkSync ecosystem. It is convenient for more high-quality ecosystems to expand or be deployed on the zkSync mainnet, expanding the entire project ecosystem.
zk-EVM stands for Zero Knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine, which is the zero-knowledge Ethereum virtual machine we often hear this year. Simply put, it uses a technology called "zero-knowledge proof" to execute the smart contract, which can provide higher privacy, security and faster speed. It is a major technological innovation in the industry this year and has become a hot topic in the market. In addition, zkSync is the first project launched on zk-EVM.
zkSync Era Ecosystem
Matter Labs officially stated that more than 150 projects have deployed or expressed their willingness to deploy on zkSync. The total value of these projects exceeds US$65 million, but there are still many applications that have not yet been launched on the mainnet.
How popular is the zkSync Era ecosystem? The number of independent users reached 260,000 within 12 days of the mainnet launch, and the current number of independent addresses is over 530,000. This data is quite amazing in the world of web2. At the same time, the locked amount soared to 100 million US dollars, ranking second only to dydyx.
The gas fee to Ethereum through the official cross-chain bridge has risen to $5 per transaction, and the gas fee for a single swap in the mainnet's spot regionalized exchange is as high as $1.3. It should be noted that it is a Layer 2 network. Compared with the gas fee of $0.3 on the Optimism and Arbitrum networks, it can be seen that the market is optimistic about and loves zkSync Era. Of course, the high gas fee is inevitably fueled by the wool party.
Why zkync will become the leader of Ethereum's second-layer protocol solutions in the next bull market
1. ZK technology is much stronger than ARB and is the technical solution that Vitalik is most optimistic about.
2. ZKSYNC has the most funding on Ethereum’s second layer, far surpassing ARB and OP
3. ZK technology is so powerful that big institutions such as a16z, Binance and Blockchain Capital participated in the financing at the first time (458 million, the project with the most financing so far)
4. Zk technology, as an L2 solution, solves technical problems that arb and op cannot solve
It is easy for ZKSYNC to surpass arb
There are a few non-locked quotas available at the moment. If you want them, please contact us. Welfare projects do not lock up positions. With the continuous development of ZKS, the subsequent premium will definitely rise. It is wise to get the chips at the low price in the early stage.
zkSync has many stories and possibilities for its own development. With the continuous development of Ethereum technology, the competition of zk-EVM is becoming more and more fierce. Although zero-knowledge proof technology is still very new, there are already many teams developing zk-EVM and constantly launching new features and improvements. zkSync Era has demonstrated extremely high performance and efficiency in the past period of time. With the continuous expansion of the zkSync ecosystem, we look forward to zkSync 3.0 bringing more surprises in the future.
