Polygon has released its open source zkEVM Ethereum scaling technology to the mainnet, promising reduced transaction costs and increased performance of smart contract implementations.
Polygon’s zkEVM is a zero-knowledge rollups (ZK-rollups) scaling solution equivalent to the Ethereum virtual machine. ZK-rollups increase performance on the Ethereum blockchain by pooling computations and state storage across Layer 2 platforms. The technology allows thousands of transactions to be rolled off-chain, with a proof containing a summary of data minimum published on the Ethereum mainnet.
Polygon’s zkEVM is a type of ZK-rollup that mimics the Ethereum mainnet transaction execution environment. The open source zkEVM is touted to allow decentralized applications (DApps) to scale through transaction batching, unlocking higher performance.
Gas fees will also be reduced for DApp users, which could drive wider adoption, while the use of zero-knowledge proofs sees Polygon zkEVM inheriting the security of the Ethereum network. Lastly, Ethereum equivalence means developers can simply copy existing smart contracts into Polygon’s zkEVM.
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Cointelegraph spoke with Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal ahead of the mainnet beta launch to reveal the significance of the milestone and the anticipated effect zkEVM will have on the broader Ethereum ecosystem.
March 27, 2023 will change the scale of Ethereum forever.
What does a “zkEVM backbone” mean?
1. EVM equivalence
2. Completed and published audits
3. Public access to all developers, builders and users.
4. PerformancePolygon zkEVM is the only game in town right now!#zk23 season! pic.twitter.com/OK34fQhTAD
—Sandeep Nailwal | deep sand polygon (@sandeepnailwal) March 25, 2023
Nailwal described ZK proofs as “the holy grail of Ethereum scaling”, allowing the layer 1 blockchain to simply verify a submitted proof without having to rerun the calculations:
“Imagine you calculated an entire business transaction somewhere else off-chain at layer 2, but on Ethereum, you presented a very succinct proof, and Ethereum 200% knows you calculated it correctly.”
ZK-rollups are also set to make Optimistic Rollups obsolete, according to Nailwal. The Ethereum blockchain essentially assumes that Optimistic Rollups submits the correct calculations, while a network participant verifies the transaction details. This is part of the reason that Optimistic Rollups in Tier 2 have a seven-day withdrawal period:
“That’s why it’s a game changer. The community knows that Optimistic Rollups are like crutches before Ethereum discovered ZK. And now that ZK is there, it makes Optimistic Rollups obsolete. This is basically the end of the game.”
Nailwal said that the arrival of ZK-rollups means that future development of the Ethereum ecosystem can focus on user experience, higher scalability, and easier testing to “open the floodgates” for wider use.
While zkEVM has been released into mainnet beta, Nailwal stressed that the technology is in the final state of the product. The zkEVM will continue to be optimized as users increase and more audits are performed over the next few months.
Cointelegraph also asked if ZK rollups have brought the Ethereum ecosystem any closer to resolving the so-called blockchain trilemma coined by co-founder Vitalik Buterin.
“It’s very close, actually. The blockchain trilemma says that for security, decentralization, and scalability, you can only choose two. What you’re doing is getting scalability somewhere else, computing something, and getting the security and decentralization of Ethereum.”
Buterin also participated in Polygon’s zkEVM launch on March 27, performing the first user transaction. Nailwal described the gesture as symbolic, given Buterin’s continuing influence on Ethereum’s development.
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