Polygon has launched zkEVM, an open-source scaling solution that promises drastically improved costs and speed on Ethereum. One of the innovations trying to bring forward a faster quicker Ethereum is ZK rollups which are layer 2 protocols that bundle or roll-up hundreds of transfers off-chain and generate a cryptographic proof or validity proof that gets posted on L1 drastically simplifying the process.
This comes after Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin has pushed for efforts to address an issue he called the scalability trilemma. A key problem when it comes to scaling the Ethereum network to reduce congestion and process more transactions is that quick solutions would compromise the network’s security and even decentralization.
“We all know that Ethereum needs to scale, and we at Polygon believe that zero-knowledge (ZK) tech is the most promising pathway to get there. But that path has often seemed as if it would be long and winding. The conventional wisdom has been that the crypto space would need many years to develop Layer 2 solutions that could give us both the scalability benefits of ZK proofs and compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). We are proud to announce that the wait is over. Introducing Polygon zkEVM, the future of Ethereum scaling,” Polygon stated in a blog post.
Polygon added, “The vision for a zkEVM with complete EVM-equivalence is simple. Developers seamlessly deploy any Ethereum smart contract to a Layer 2 that scales infinitely using ZK proofs. Any tooling or dApp on Ethereum is used in exactly the same way on a zkEVM. Users and developers alike reaping the futuristic benefits of ZK proofs, all while benefiting from the decentralization, security, and familiarity of Ethereum.”
Although ZK Rollup L2s theoretically resolve the scalability trilemma by enabling scalability while maintaining security and decentralization, in practice, generating validity proofs is a significant addition to the processing load and ultimately does not need the kind of dramatic speed improvements that Ethereum requires. Additionally, ZK Rollups may not be compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Ethereum (EVM).
The polygon team emphasizes that the potential for a ZK rollup to scale Ethereum is obvious, one transaction replaces many, increasing throughput, saving on fees and reducing latency among others.
Polygon said it had made a breakthrough, addressing the two main challenges to ZK rollups which it notes is the best way to scale Ethereum.
“Polygon’s ZK teams have made major breakthroughs in performance. Working together, we’ve significantly improved proof-generation times. This makes Polygon zkEVM ready for primetime. Users will see dramatically reduced costs and improved speed.”