The New Look Of ZK Brought By zkSync Era: Could There Be Anything More Appealing?

Key Points:

• zkSync, the ZK series L2 expansion solution, announced the launch of version 2.0 and called zkSync Era, and version 1.0 will be renamed lite.
• Unlike the restricted use of the testnet stage, this zkSync Era mainnet will be open to all developers.
• If the release of Polygon zkEVM has sounded the clarion call of the new year, then zkSync 2.0 is a preview of comprehensive prosperity.

On February 16, zkSync, the ZK series L2 expansion solution, announced the launch of version 2.0 and called this version Era, and version 1.0 will be renamed lite. The two will coexist for a long time and undertake different types of tasks. Era in English means era, which also means that zkSync has entered a new era of development.

This is the first mainnet launch after the four-month testnet stage. Unlike the restricted use of the testnet stage, this zkSync Era mainnet will be open to all developers. Currently, its Github codebase is available for review. In order to ensure security, there will be certain restrictions on the number of funds in the early stage of the main network, but more functions will be opened to all users in the end.

List of Era Update Features

In the standard zkSync block life cycle, it can basically be divided into four steps. It usually takes 3-5 hours from transaction initiation to final confirmation, which is its biggest advantage over Optimistic’s average one-week confirmation time.

In order to meet more practical purposes, Era will gradually support the following functions:

• Native support for ECDSA signatures. Users do not need additional operations to use the private key. Any account can use the same private key in L2 as in L1.
• Solidity 0.8.x versions are supported. It is consistent with the Ethereum mainnet development environment.
• The Web3 API is almost fully compatible with Ethereum. Developers can reuse most of the APIs.
• Smart contract messaging between L1 and L2. Allows developers to transfer data from Ethereum to zkSync, seamlessly connecting various data information communicated between the two.

Among them, the most important thing is the compatibility between L1 and L2. zkSync divides it into two parts: L1 to L2 communication and L2 to L1 communication, so as to finally realize two-way communication between L1 and L2.

This Era update, will focus on the communication between L1 and L2. Thanks to the compatibility with the main network, it is not difficult to send a message from the Ethereum main network to zkSync Era to call the smart contract. Era mainly focuses on Gas design and optimization.

The current transaction priorities from L1 to L2 are sorted and processed in FIFO (first-in-first-out) mode, but the concept of “priority” will be introduced in the future to support specific sorting of transactions to determine specific priorities to improve network customization and high-frequency usage requirements.

Secondly, the function zkPorter is expected to be realized on the main network in the future. It is characterized by high security and 20 times lower cost than the Ethereum main network, and finally realizes a transaction fee as low as a few cents to support large-scale calls, but you need to pay attention to this This function has not yet been launched on the secondary test network.

In addition, zkSync Era will make efforts in the combination of smart contracts and account abstraction to support advanced operations such as complex DeFi stacks, and maintain synchronization with the iterative direction of the Ethereum mainnet.

In the vision of Matter Labs, based on zkSync, specific application chains or extension chains such as L3 and L4 can continue to be built, and finally the scalability of the entire blockchain network can be realized, and native cross-chain can be realized between two specific chains. The chain bridge transfers assets and messages, but requires the help of third-party tools.

However, L1 is still needed for the final settlement, and this is where the effectiveness of zkEVM comes in.

Pointing at zkEVM and mainstream developers

In the current struggle of the ZK series L2 expansion solution, zkEVM and ecology are two inseparable sides. The zkEVM of ConsenSys, Polygon, and Scroll are the three main competitors, and the overt competition for major DeFi projects has also reached a fever pitch.

In September last year, zkSync developer Matter Labs raised $200 million in the C round of financing, a considerable part of which will be used for development and ecological construction. start up.

In this mainnet update, the official released the list of zkSync Era testnet project deployments for the first time. Only the projects that pass the debugging can be launched on the zkSync Era Mainnet Alpha mainnet in the first batch to avoid failures in the direct launch of the mainnet.

At present, Matter Labs can directly launch the main network, but in order to ensure the safe start and operation of the main network, the following two security measures will be taken at present:

zkSync. Era still needs to go through a complete security audit, and Matter Labs will try its best to ensure the security of the main network, which is also the experimental significance of the open test network project.

zkSync Era Mainnet Alpha will initially impose restrictions on transaction frequency, lock-up volume (TVL), etc., and the restrictions will be reduced as the mainnet matures.

During the testnet phase, a total of nearly 9 million transactions were completed, 30,000 smart contracts were deployed, and 500,000 active addresses were generated.

In order to further attract developers, the code of the Era mainnet will be simultaneously open to developers for their use, including smart contracts, sequencers, provers, and GPU accelerators, covering the most important functions.

• Developers can deploy and test dApp functions on zkSync Era during the testing phase;
• Developers can bridge the Ethereum standard Token to the Era network. Currently, tokens other than ERC-20 are supported, but specific information needs to be submitted to the official;
• Developers can participate in bug discovery, function debugging and bug bounty programs to help the official improve the security measures of the Era mainnet;

Under the MIT/Apache 2.0 open source license, there are less restrictions on commercialization or forks. In the future, zkSync will not use Uniswap to restrict competitors from code forks, reflecting its recognition of the spirit of open source and promoting the comprehensive development of ZK technology promote.

The EVM compatibility of zkSync enables smart contracts written in Solidity and Vyper to be used on zkSync without refactoring, but this is still not enough to achieve the goal of Matter Labs – to move towards a truly mainstream development group.

In addition, zkSync Era will use an LLVM-based compiler. Thanks to the open source and universality of LLVM, it will eventually allow developers to write smart contracts in languages such as C++ and Rust.

LLVM is the abbreviation of Low-Level Virtual Machine, which means the underlying virtual machine which does not depend on a specific programming language, instruction set, and operating system. For example, macOS uses it as part of its own development tools.

The Era mainnet will also integrate more with existing development tools to lower the entry barrier for external developers:

• After this update, the Era mainnet will be compatible with the cloud-integrated development environment. For example, the Era mainnet can use Google cloud services to store data;
• Both GPU and non-GPU environments can be used for key generation and setting, and GPU acceleration will still be optimized to facilitate the development of hardware acceleration devices in the future;
• Local development uses the official website development guide, which can basically achieve an integrated development mode that can be run after one instruction without excessive debugging of the software and hardware environment;

However, developers need to be reminded that the current zkSync still adopts the mode of “off-chain computing and storage and on-chain transaction confirmation”, and the nodes are still run by Matter Labs, so it is not completely decentralized but will gradually transition to distributed mode.

Conclusion

There is no spring that will not come, and zkSync has successfully ushered in its own early spring. If the release of Polygon zkEVM has sounded the clarion call of the new year, then zkSync 2.0 is a preview of comprehensive prosperity.

In this competition, zkSync Era has a relatively high degree of completion. Its strategies for developers and projects also help it build its own ecosystem, and it also has deep technology for future hardware acceleration and inter-chain scalability.

DISCLAIMER: The Information on this website is provided as general market commentary and does not constitute investment advice. We encourage you to do your own research before investing.

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Harold

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