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, the original author: tolks, compiled by Odaily translator Katie Gu.
In the past few months, blockchain expansion solutions based on zero-knowledge proofs are accelerating, and capital investment and development progress have also increased significantly.
This article first takes you to review the recent development in the field of zero-knowledge proofs, and at a glance the current positioning of ZK’s main players, token status and development context, so that we can clearly perceive that the future of ZK has come.
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ZK overview
The Rollup scaling solution focuses on reducing on-chain fees (mainly referring to Ethereum), which is critical to expanding L1 to hundreds of millions of users. While Optimistic Rollups (Arbitrum, Optimism) using fraud proofs are the best choice now, ZKRs using off-chain computations will be the best choice in the future.
In simple terms, ZK technology allows users to prove that they own or know something without providing any information about what that thing is or how much there is. After the economic sanctions triggered by the Russia-Ukraine war, ZK technology has also attracted attention, and people's enthusiasm and demand for private transactions are increasing.
Source: Matter Labs
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New progress in the implementation of ZK technology
In the past six months, the ZK field has developed rapidly, and important events include:
On March 10, StarkWare (L2 solution) is raising $100 million at a valuation of $6 billion. Previously, StarkWare had raised $50 million in November 2021 at a valuation of $2 billion.
On March 8, the smart contract wallet Argent announced the full opening of Layer 2 account registration, and more than 500,000 users on the registration waiting list can access its Ethereum zkSync network Layer 2 wallet.
On March 7, Immutable raised $200 million at a valuation of $2.5 billion.
On March 7, Espresso Systems, a Web3 application extension and privacy system, completed $32 million in financing. It is developing a Layer1 infrastructure that combines the PoS consensus protocol with the zkRollup mechanism to bundle multiple transactions in a more efficient manner, thereby providing Fast, low-fee transactions.
On February 22, zkSync developer Matter Labs launched zkEVM on Ethereum’s testnet, and it raised $50 million in November 2021.
On February 22, StarkNet built by StarkWare was released and will be transferred to the community in the second half of the year.
On February 7, Polygon secured their latest funding round of $450 million to expand their ZK technology business.
On February 7, ZK technology blockchain company Aleo raised $200 million at a valuation of $1.45 billion.
On February 3rd, GameStop partnered with Immutable X to build their NFT marketplace and announced a $100 million investment in their ecosystem.
On January 7th, Matter Labs and BitDAO launched a $200 million DAO to continue expanding the zkSync ecosystem and building core infrastructure.
On December 16, 2021, Aztec Network completed a US$17 million Series A financing.
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The 7 main players in the ZK series
（1）StarkNet
1. The main products developed by StarkWare are: StarkNet and StarkEx.
StarkNet is a ZK-Rollup L2 solution. Its solution using ZK-STARKs was released on the Ethereum mainnet on November 29 last year.
On Feb. 23, StarkNet announced its latest version, StarkNet Alpha, saying the scaling solution is ready for application building and transactions. Most recently, StarkNet announced partnerships with protocols such as Aave, Opera Browser, DeversiFi, and Argent.
（2）StarkEx
Tokens: Expected to be airdropped to early users in the second half of this year.
StarkEx, a scalability engine built with the programming language Cairo, has been live on mainnet since June 2020 and is currently adopted by DeversiFi, Immutable X, dYdX, and Sorare.
According to data from StarkWare, StarkEx has achieved a TVL of US$1.1 billion since March 9, with 123 million transactions and a cumulative value of US$462 billion.
2. zkSync
Tokens: Will ultimately be run by the community. But I'm assuming this is shortly after the StarkNet token goes live, and probably also airdropped to early adopters in the second half of the year.
zkSync is a ZK-rollup using ZK-SNARKs developed by Matter Labs and has been running since June 2020. On February 22, zkSync announced that its 2.0 has been launched, and it is the first ZK Rollup compatible with EVM in the Ethereum test network. “Last May, we presented zkSync’s vision for zkEVM, a permissionless, Turing-complete ZK Rollup that would allow developers to build and deploy at low cost using a highly scalable L2 environment using Ethereum’s native programming language, Solidity. DApps."
Here are more details about the current features of zkSync 2.0:
(1) Support ECDSA signature. Unlike the first version of zkSync and most ZK rollups, no special operations are required to register a user's private key. In L2, any account can be managed with the same private key used by L1.
(2) Support Solidity 0.8.x. Deploy existing code bases with little to no changes.
(3) Web3 API, fully compatible with Ethereum. This allows seamless integration with existing indexers, browsers, etc.
(4) Support Ethereum encryption primitives. zkSync natively supports kecak2569 sha256.
(5) Hard hat insert. Allow developers to easily test and develop smart contracts on zkSync.
(6) Smart contract messages from LI to L2. Allows developers to pass data from Ethereum L1 to smart contracts on zkSync, providing the information needed to run various smart contracts.
For more information about zkSync, you can view its project ecosystem and ZK solutions, and refer to Dune Analytics' zkSync transaction data, TVL, and other information on accessing zkSync.
3. Immutable X（IMX）
According to official documents, zkSync will issue tokens, but the exact time is unknown.
Powered by StarkWare's StarkEx, Immutable X is one of the leading protocols powered by ZK technology, with applications in the gaming and NFT space. Immutable X says it is "insisting on providing zero-gas handling fees, instant transactions, and carbon-neutral NFTs for marketplaces, games, and applications." Immutable X has been around for many years and has done a lot of development and optimization.
IMX-based offerings include Gods Unchained, Illuvium ($ILV) and TikTok's hit series.
On February 3, GameStop announced that it would create an NFT marketplace based on Immutable X and invest $100 million to support game development within its ecosystem.
4. Polygon（MATIC）
The Immutable X token is IMX.
Polygon is currently developing three independent ZK-rollup expansion solutions:
(1) Polygon Miden: a stark-based zk-Rollup that supports any smart contract.
(2) Polygon Zero: Provides Rollup and Validium modes, bringing higher throughput and lower costs.
(3) Polygon Hermez: An open source zk-Rollup that optimizes token transactions in terms of security, low cost and usability.
5. Espresso Systems
Unfortunately, a detailed roadmap for Polygon's suite of ZK rollups is hard to come by.
Espresso made their official debut on March 6th, announced funding, and introduced their vision. Scaling and privacy solution Espresso describes itself as "an L1 combining PoS consensus and ZK-rollup mechanism".
6. Aztec Network
Espresso Systems released CAPE (Configurable Asset Privacy for Ethereum), an EVM application that allows users to customize who can see ownership details and asset movements, and is able to wrap and unwrap current ERC-20 generation within CAPE currency. CAPE will be deployed to the Rinkeby testnet in the coming weeks.
A L2 scaling solution using zk-SNARKs — protecting the privacy of ERC-20 token transactions and other DeFi interactions — is currently deployed on the Goerli testnet.
7. Aleo
zk.money is the core application developed by Aztec that allows MetMask users to secretly send DAI and ETH, and the team hopes to achieve full wallet-level asset privacy later this year.
Aleo completed a $200 million Series B round of financing on February 7th and is currently in the testnet stage. It plans to launch the mainnet in Q3 this year.
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Breakthrough Potential of ZK
Related Reading
Related Reading
An article comparing zkSync and Starkware, the two-layer solution of Ethereum
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