Comprehensive comparison of the four major L2 protocols of the zk system: progress, similarities and differences, and ecology
Original author: Nian Qing, ChainCatcher
Original author: Nian Qing, ChainCatcher
Recently, with the launch of zkSync 2.0, the zk system expansion scheme has ushered in another wave of climax. Also, after last month's Devcon in Bogota, there have been many "new" voices in the zkEVM space.
For example, zkSync touts itself as "the world's first fully functional open-source zkEVM network," and critics, including Steven Goldfeder, co-founder and CEO of Arbitrum development company OffChain Labs, say the zkEVM testnet is not There is no zk-proofs enabled, nor has it undergone a security audit. This kind of advocacy is of no benefit to anyone, and it is still far from being realized.
Polygon zkEVM also claimed "the first and only decentralized zkEVM testnet" when it was officially launched during Devcon in Bogota, but it quickly attracted criticism from the community: Although the source code of the Polygon zkEVM prover (zk prover) is available on Github , but there is no open source license yet; although it says "completely equivalent", its Github code base shows that it has only measured 97% compatibility coverage for the time being. In response, the Polygon team responded, "There is no deliberate concealment, and some content is being written for better documentation."
In addition, Scroll also announced a Pre-Alpha testnet upgrade during Devcon in Bogotá, and opened the test to whitelist users. According to the plan, StarkWare launched an upgraded version of Cairo at the end of September, Cairo 1.0, which will be officially launched before the end of the year.
This article sorts out the development progress and ecological details of the four major protocols of the zk system, StarkWare, zkSync, Polygon zkEVM, and Scroll, to give you a comprehensive understanding of the real situation of the zkEVM track that is currently hot.
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1. Starkware
1 Introduction:
StarkWare is the project with the strongest team in the zk system expansion solution. The co-founder Eli Ben-Sasson is the world's top cryptography scientist and the co-inventor of zkSNARK and zkSTARK. The co-founder and CEO Uri Kolodny graduated from Heber Came to college as a computer science major and serial entrepreneur. StarkWare is currently valued at $8 billion.
StarkWare currently develops two products: ToB's StarkEx and ToC's StarkNet. StarkEx is an independent license Validity-Rollup (Validity Proof), which sells customized technology engine service StarkEx, and directly charges service fees to customers with expansion needs. Currently, it has served dYdX, ImmutableX, Sorare, DeversiFi, rhino.fi, ApeX , Myria and other customers; StarkNet is a permissionless decentralized zk-Rollup open to everyone, using the zkSTARK proof system to support the autonomous deployment of dApps.
The basic smart contract language used by StarkNet is not Solidity, but Turing's complete zero-knowledge proof system language Cairo, which itself is not compatible with EVM. The team has been looking for zkEVM compatibility. At the end of October, StarkWare announced the launch of zkEVM (named "Kakarot") based on Cairo, but the actual development is still in the early stage and has not yet landed.
In addition, Ethereum development team Nethermind is building a Solidity - Cairo "compiler" that allows projects written in Solidity to "one-click" translate their codebase into Cairo. It is reported that this "compiler" is still under development, and once it is effective, it will enable StarkNet to achieve a similar level of EVM compatibility as zkSync 2.0. Nethermind has been working on code translations and previously launched a version of Uniswap Warp on the StarkNet network.
2. Progress:
As the earliest developers in the zk-Rollup field, the Alpha version of StarkNet was launched on the mainnet in November 2021.
StarkWare launched an upgraded version of Cairo, Cairo 1.0, at the end of September. It is expected to be officially launched before the end of 2022. The new version language improves network DoS attack protection capabilities and reduces gas costs, supports StarkNet's permissionless network requirements, and will simplify and protect protocols. . At that time, the team will also restart StarkNet on the Ethereum mainnet called "Regensis".
Currently, StarkNet is launching the second testnet on Goerli and launching a call for naming proposals in the community. The new testnet is mainly for developers to test applications, not a public beta stage.
3. Ecology:
StarkNetecologyecologyL2beatMainly DeFi, GameFi, and NFT. More than 100 projects have been deployed on StarkNet, but in fact some projects are still in the planning and deployment stage, and the number of projects that can really realize interaction is not many. according to
The data shows that the total lock-up volume of StarkNet is currently 3.1 million US dollars, the average daily TPS is 0.15, and the 30-day transaction count is about 279,000.Argent X、Braavoswallet:
(Recently completed $10 million in financing led by Pantera Capital)Orbiter FinanceCross-chain bridge:StarkGate
DeFi：
10KSwap, the officially developed Ethereum-Starknet cross-chain bridge
Alpha Road Finance: StarkNet's native AMM DEX protocol has been launched on the main network, and currently only ETH, USDC, DAI, WBTC, and USDT can be traded.
Brine Finance: StarkNet's native DEX and liquidity staking protocol, currently in the testing phase.
Fibrous Finance: Order book trading DEX, currently still on testnet.
mySwap: AMM aggregator on StarkNet, still running on testnet.
zkLend: The first AMM DEX on StarkNet.
GameFi：Loot Realms、GoL2、The NinthThe mainnet has been launched.
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Two, zksync
1 Introduction:
zkSync was founded by Matter Labs in December 2019. It was founded later than StarkWare. It uses zk-Rollup technology based on SNARK proof and supports zkEVM at the IR level.
Matter Labs released the zkSync v1.0 version in June 2020, and it took a long time to go online until the zkSync 2.0 testnet was launched in February this year. Compared with the previous version, zkSync 2.0 has greatly improved its functions. In zkSync1.0, users can only experience basic functions such as transfer and minting NFT, while zkSync 2.0 supports EVM compatibility and will also open the deployment of ecological applications. It is a truly complete version of zk-Rollup products.
2. Progress:
On October 28, zkSync 2.0 was officially launched, and it is said that it is currently in the Baby Alpha stage. At this stage, zkSync 2.0 will be launched on the main network without external projects, mainly for stress testing and multiple security tasks. Developers cannot access the mainnet, but can continue developing on the testnet. The Baby Alpha stage will last about a month.
According to the official roadmap, the fourth quarter (after Baby Alpha) will enter the Fair Launch Alpha stage, and the team will open project deployment permissions to developers. Phase one extended until 2023. Then after a series of comprehensive tests, security audits, contests, and bug bounties, zkSync 2.0 will be open to all users, which is the closest time to coin issuance. Over 150 projects have already committed to launching on zkSync 2.0.
In terms of token issuance, Steve Newcomb, chief product officer of Matter Labs, said in a Twitter Spaces discussion that zkSync will announce the details of its token economic model in the first week of November. On November 3, zkSync co-founder Alex G hinted: "Some big news is coming."
3. EcologyAccording to zkSyncEcological official websiteL2beatAccording to statistics, more than 100 projects have been deployed on the network so far. According to another
The data shows that the current total lock-up volume is 6.27 million US dollars, the average daily TPS is 0.37, and the 30-day transaction count is 1.38 million.Argent X、zkSync Portal 2.0wallet:
(In zkSync 2.0, users can directly add zkSync 2.0 RPC nodes in MetaMask without downloading other wallets)
Orbiter FinanceCross-chain bridge:
(Currently only supports zkSync1.0, not yet supporting zkSync 2.0 test network)
DeFi：
SyncSwapThe official cross-chain bridge address of the zkSync2.0 test network: https://portal.zksync.io/bridge (also supports other functions such as wallet transfer and receiving test coins)
Increment: The zkSync-based DEX has launched the zkSync 2.0 network.
SpaceFi: It is a zkSync 2.0-based decentralized algorithm perpetual contract agreement, which was recently released on the zkSync 2.0 test network. However, it is currently only open to users who have previously applied for the whitelist test, and now the registration deadline has passed.
Zigzag: It is a cross-chain web3 platform on Evmos and zkSync, currently running on the zkSync 2.0 testnet.
Sprintcheckout: It is an order book DEX supported by zk Rollup, currently only supports zksync1.0 network
NFT：
MintSquare: An encrypted payment platform, currently running on the zkSync 2.0 test network.
In addition, protocols such as Aave V3, Uniswap V3, and 1KX Protocol Beta are already planned to be deployed on the zkSync 2.0 test network.
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3. Polygon Hermez (Polygon zkEVM)
1 Introduction:
In July 2021, the Hermez team announced the development of a fully Ethereum-compatible zkEVM (Hermez 2.0), after which Polygon announced the acquisition of Hermez for $250 million. Polygon zkEVM uses zk-Rollup technology based on SNARK proof.Polygon zkEVM has opcode-level compatibility. exist"Vitalik: The future of different types of ZK-EVM
"In the article, Vitalik ranks Polygon zkEVM and Scroll as the third level, and is at the forefront of the current ZK Rollup in terms of EVM compatibility.
In the recent publicity, Polygon has been emphasizing that its zkEVM is "the only decentralized zk-rollup", because it first realized the open source of zk Prover, including a complete ZK proof system with available source code, and promised to be completely open source, powered by Community-driven, permissionless network of coordinators, decentralized auction model with validation reward tokens.
2. Progress:
In addition, Polygon zkEVM made it clear that there is no plan to issue coins for the time being, and ETH will be used to pay gas fees. MATIC will be used for staking, governance of Polygon zkEVM.
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4. Scroll
1 Introduction:
Scroll was founded in 2021 and completed a $30 million Series A round of financing at the end of last year. Similar to Polygon zkEVM, Scroll is also committed to creating an EVM-equivalent zk-Rollup, and it is even better in compatibility. It claims to be the most EVM-compatible zk-Rollup, so that applications on Ethereum can be migrated to the second version almost seamlessly. layer network. Compatibility at the bytecode level can achieve compatibility with all languages on the Ethereum, and can also be compatible with the tools on the Ethereum, which greatly reduces the difficulty of development on the second-tier network.
2It is worth mentioning that since Scroll co-founder Ye Zhang has considerable experience in ZKP hardware acceleration, Scroll plans to use hardware acceleration in ZKP to further improve verification efficiency, establish a decentralized verification network, and distribute ZKP proofs to Participants perform calculations and aggregate the results into a final proof. The decentralized verification network will be open to everyone, and an incentive mechanism and punishment mechanism will be set.
On October 11, Scroll released an upgraded version of the Pre-Alpha test network. There are already some pre-deployed applications such as Uniswap v2, etc., allowing users to perform some functions such as transfers between L1 and L2, but at this stage users are still requiredregisterregister
Apply to join the whitelist to participate in the test. However, due to the emergence of a large number of scanning robots, the official has temporarily slowed down the review and tightened list of test applications. Therefore, many users have reported in the community that they have not received an email reply. The community suggests changing the wallet address and email address to reapply. .
Scroll encountered serious cross-chain delays during the testnet, and there were also cases where the testnet tokens of the faucet could not be accessed. The official response was due to serious congestion in Ethereum.
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summary
summary
In general, although StarkWare and zkSync indicate that they will eventually realize zkEVM, they are not compatible at the bytecode level after all, requiring developers to translate and migrate code. Therefore, Polygon zkEVM and Scroll will be closer to the Ethereum ecosystem.
However, EVM compatibility is not the only criterion for judging whether the L2 expansion solution is good or bad, it is only used as an objective indicator. In fact, although the fully equivalent EVM is safe, it may sacrifice efficiency. Starkware's Cario predicted that the virtual machine built and the Zksync virtual machine will be more flexible in building zk.
