preface

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preface

All products with technical characteristics as the main selling point are semi-finished products.

The ZK track is also officially hot. If the previous ZK-Rollup limited it to the L2 local area, then it has a vague tendency to become a common technology for the entire blockchain network at this moment. R3PO believes that ZK EVM will come to an end to some extent. Chain coexistence pattern.

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Picture description: The solution to transfer files between different operating systems

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Source: R3PO

Imagine the following scenario:

Alice wants to pass a Word document running on Windows to Bob, but Bob only has a Mac that can use Pages, so Bob cannot open the document. How should I solve this problem? If you don’t consider Bob installing the Mac version of Word and copying the text in the article, there are still the following four ways:

• 1. Alice uploads the article to the cloud, such as Google Docs, Bob can open and edit the document on a cross-platform browser;

• 2. Alice hands Word.exe and the document to the other party, and Bob can use Crossover or a virtual machine (VM) to simulate the Windows environment, so that he can run the .exe application on the Mac and open the document;

Crossover can only support Word.exe to run alone, but can't do anything to other .exe applications.

The virtual machine (VM) will install a Windows subsystem in the Mac, and any .exe application can be run in the Windows subsystem;

3. Alice changes the document into a file format that Java can understand and hands it over to the other party. Bob can install the Java environment on the Mac to open the document;

• 4. Alice converts the document into a binary file and sends it to the other party, and Bob can open the document with the lowest compatibility.

• If you can understand the above process, then try to replace the following concepts:

• Operating systems such as Windows and macOS --> public chains such as Ethereum and Cosmos;

• Crossover -->Application formats such as .exe and .dmg --> Dapps of different public chains;

• Word document --> assets on the chain;

• JVM -->cross-chain bridge;

• Virtual machine (VM) --> EVM with low compatibility, such as Polygon Hermez is a kind of ZK VM, compared with EVM to implement functions, manual iteration is required to keep synchronous updates;

EVM, language-level equivalent compatibility, such as the planned Scroll, which implements ZK EVM is completely equivalent to EVM, which can be understood as adding ZK feature version to EVM;

The characteristics of the entire VM and EVM are as described above, and their operation mode is basically similar to the process of transferring files across operating systems. In R3PO's view, the biggest trend is that ZK EVM will not only replace the existing EVM compatible solutions, but will eventually lead to Ethereum becoming the only application layer communication protocol, while other public chains will become specific-purpose chains in specific fields, similar to Linux Active in the server field, while Windows is active among ordinary users.

The reasons for this conclusion will be discussed in detail below.

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If you want to know others, you must first know yourself: the essence of ecology is the two-way rush of developers and users

EVM has promoted the victory of Ethereum in the public chain competition. This victory is not due to Ethereum's "superiority in computing power", but mainly because of compatibility, because the old generation of Ethereum killers such as EOS, and the previous generation such as Solona The Ethereum Killer, as well as the new generation of Ethereum Killers such as Aptos, have advertised their own super high speed of TPS.

However, Ethereum still stands tall, maintaining an absolute lead in TVL and the number of Dapps with a single-digit TPS. This advantage can be summarized as an ecological cluster effect, but why are other public chains compatible with EVM and vigorously building cross-chains? After the bridge, the gap has not narrowed, but there are signs of further expansion in the bear market?

R3PO believes that the solution to the problem can be obtained from a relatively definite starting point.

This starting point is the experience of developers. The current Web 3 is still in its very early stage, which can be compared to the Internet 2000 years ago. It is still the domain of geeks and early adopters. Even with the token mechanism, most users still settle on In CeDeFi built by CEX and TradiFi, there are very few real users on the chain. The active addresses of Ethereum are only 400,000, but the TVL is as high as 32 billion U.S. dollars, and the market value is 200 billion U.S. dollars.

The development experience that Ethereum gives developers is the most complete.

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Caption: JVM Architecture

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Source: Wikipedia

With the help of JVM, Java has become one of the most mainstream development languages ​​in the world. It may not be specialized in a certain field, but it can be applied in any field. This is the essence of compatibility.

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Caption: EVM Architecture

Source: ethereum.org

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Caption: EVM working diagram

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Source: R3PO

And language-level compatibility also helps ensure the efficiency and safety of the EVM.

The virtual machine (VM) in the above figure refers to the operation mode between different operating systems, such as Parallels Desktop, which can ensure that the Windows subsystem runs on the Mac, but it needs to allocate specific hardware and software resources from the original system to build the subsystem. Then install the Windows application in the subsystem, and then the application can run. However, due to the limitation of resource allocation, its operating efficiency cannot be compared with that of native applications.

The EVM is similar to the JVM, and it performs compatibility operations from the Solidity language level. Developers use the API provided by Infura to interact with the main network, and use Truffle to develop, test, and deploy smart contracts. The development kit is readily available to complete the EVM After adaptation, Dapp can run on any EVM-compatible public chain.

The EVM refers to the JVM, and there is no need to consider too many hardware and coding issues. It only needs to be developed for the functions that the application really needs, one-time adaptation, multi-terminal universal.

The meaning of ecology is development + application + users, and EVM plays the role of initializing the flywheel in ecological construction.

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If you want to talk about people, you must first talk about yourself: compatibility with EVM will not promote the success of competitors

• EVM has contributed to the success of Ethereum, but why can't other EVM-compatible public chains and the "vampire plan" that sucks the Ethereum ecosystem work?

• Compatible logic:

• For developers: Compatible with EVM to reduce the migration cost of Ethereum developers, and provide new features of the public chain such as higher TPS;

For users: provide a certain degree of token incentives to encourage user migration;

• Complete the replacement of Ethereum.

• Compatible logical loopholes:

• For developers: Compatible EVM is not a native EVM after all, and there is an invisible migration cost;

Result: Ethereum still occupies the most mainstream position.

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Caption: List of EVM compatible solutions

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Source: R3PO

At this time, other public chains are mainly taking the initiative, while Ethereum is focusing on improving its old problems, such as PoW to PoS, L2 road selection, account abstraction, DankSharding, etc. On the compatible path, it mainly implements EVM , With the help of applications to achieve inter-chain compatibility and EVM compatible chains.

The public chain realizes EVM compatibility, represented by BNB Chain and others.

Exchange public chains such as BNB Chain or OKX Chain, relying on the user base of the exchange and the ability to operate projects, the TVL and ecology on the chain should not be underestimated. Taking BNB Chain as an example, according to DeFi Llama data, running on it With 492 protocols and a TVL of US$6 billion, it is the second largest public chain after Ethereum in terms of scale and volume.

Its main mode of operation "imitates" Ethereum. For example, the largest DEX on it, Pancakeswap, was originally a forked version of Uniswap. The same Dapp can seamlessly switch between the two public chains. Behind it is the huge EVM compatibility. The advantage is that the project party only needs to focus on operations instead of developing products from scratch.

On-chain EVM compatibility, represented by Solona.

Solona is a single blockchain with a PoH mechanism, and it has long been the only public chain that is not compatible with EVM among the top ten public chain projects by market capitalization. However, it does not mean that it cannot communicate with EVM-compatible chains. The Neon project provides EVM compatibility.

This kind of compatibility can be understood as doll-style compatibility, rather than direct compatibility at the level of the public chain itself.

Neon provides a development experience that is highly similar to EVM itself, such as Solidity language programming support, seamless smart contract deployment experience, direct calls to MetaMask, and Truffle and other development kits.

Compatible with EVM chain, represented by EVMOS.

Modular blockchains such as Cosmos or Polkadot have more options, and the applications on them can become L1-level public chains alone, while EVMOS is also a sub-chain of Cosmos and a public chain that provides EVM compatibility. chain, which means that Evmos can not only "pass" EVM compatibility between Cosmos, but also provide EVM compatibility between any other public chains.

Summary of this paragraph:

It is this extensive compatibility that has contributed to the opening up of the entire public chain world, and the links are EVM compatibility, cross-chain bridges, and exchanges. In view of this, R3PO has summarized the specific genres of the above compatibility to provide ZK EVM The Terminator role is warming up before the game.

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If other public chains are busy being compatible with EVM, Ethereum can’t take care of itself, but after the PoS merger is successful and the L2 technology route is determined, ZK has become a common technology for the entire public chain track, and the combination of ZK technology and EVM will also promote Ethereum. The evolution of the modular architecture is complete.

Caption: Compatibility and performance of different EVMs

Source: vitalik.eth

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• Source: vitalik.eth

• Vitalik once gave the compatibility and performance relationship of different EVM classifications. It can be found that the lower the implementation level, the stronger the compatibility, but the worse the performance. It can be seen from the excellent performance and strong security.

The closer to the bottom layer, the closer to the operating mode of the native EVM, the stronger the compatibility, but the performance will also be severely limited;

The closer to the upper layer, the more the ability of its own EVM compatibility solution will be tested. The greater the difference from Ethereum's native EVM, the worse the compatibility, but it will also bring stronger customization freedom and greatly optimize performance.

I mentioned Polygon Hermez in the previous article and classified it as a ZK VM, but in fact Hermez claims to be a ZK EVM solution, which seems to be a letter difference, but its compatibility and security are quite different.

Recently, StarkNet released the ZK EVM Kakarot using the Cairo language, which is used to run Ethereum smart contracts on StarkNet. It can be considered as the first ZK EVM to enter the testing stage. Other ZK EVM players such as Taiko, Scroll, and zkSync 2.0 are on the road.

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Image illustrating the Ethereum architecture in the era of ZK EVM

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Image source R3PO

For the first question, the answer is that ZK EVM is actually the real place for future Dapps.

In the existing cognition, Dapp either runs on the public chain or runs on the L2 network. But in R3PO's view, the ZK EVM will directly host the application layer in the future.

As shown in the figure above, the future ZK EVM will become a collection of EVM, Rollup and cross-chain bridge functions. It is a kind of EVM and does not need to be explained. Let’s focus on explaining the latter two functions.

Rollup at the L2 level is too low-level. In order to pursue higher performance, take StarkNet developed by StarkWare as an example. It plans to use ZK recursion to prove the validity of the verification data. Due to the overall limitation of the data scale, StarkNet itself can be used as the verification layer for its application and L3.

The cross-chain bridge itself is easier to understand. The essence of the cross-chain bridge is to exchange and transfer assets between different public chains. If EVM compatibility is achieved with each other, there is no need for a cross-chain bridge as an intermediary. Compared with the current The cross-chain bridge solution with frequent vulnerabilities is more secure, so ZK EVM is a better cross-chain bridge solution.

As for the Move ecological public chains such as Aptos and Sui, the Move VM they claim is also a development mechanism similar to EVM. In theory, the Move language transformed from Rust is indeed better than Solidity, but its biggest disadvantage is Because time waits for no one, it is doubtful whether it can build its own traffic and ecology, and this will fall into the dilemma of whether other public chains are compatible with EVM.

epilogue

first level title

epilogue

Whether a public chain can succeed in the market depends on its own efforts, but it also needs to consider the historical process.

ZK technology is still at least 5 years away from large-scale maturity. Under the large-scale maturity of capital and market, it may slow down to about 3 years. By then, we will be able to witness whether today’s prediction will come true.

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Disclaimer: There are risks in the market, and investment needs to be cautious. Readers are requested to strictly abide by local laws and regulations when considering any opinions, viewpoints or conclusions in this article. The above content does not constitute any investment advice.