zkEVM’s and why does Ethereum need it?
Was it just me or did every big name in the web3 community suddenly rush to build an EVM-compatible zk rollup?
Let’s look at it closely,
For the longest time the Ethereum Mainnet has been processing 15 transactions per second, this induced high gas prices and increased finality times, making the user experience more difficult than it already was.
This has been unchanged due to Ethereum’s stark view on scalability, the Ethereum Foundation is firm on not sacrificing security and decentralization.
This created the room for growth of technologies like sidechains, rollups, layer 2’s and more.
Among this zk EVM’s is turning out to be the final nail in the coffin for all these problems.
Getting to know sidechains, rollups and layer 2’s
A sidechain is a blockchain which runs independent of the Ethereum mainnet and is connected to the mainnet using a two-way bridge. Sidechains are usually incorporated with separate block parameters and consensus algorithms, with the con being that they do not inherit Ethereum’s security properties. They end up being non-reliant on ethereum for the consensus and have consensus protocols of their own for example, proof of authority, delegated proof of stake and byzantine fault tolerance.
Layer 1? Layer 2?
The base blockchain is known as Layer 1, it is the underlying foundation on which Layer 2 networks are built, Layer 2 blockchain follow a process of regularly communicating with Ethereum by submitting bundles of transaction in order to ensure similar security, all in all, Layer 1 is in charge of the security and decentralization while Layer 2 is responsible for scalability and sends the finalized proofs back, this removes the load from Layer 1 and allows room for scalability.
Rollups, yup that’s it.
In order to distribute the L1 transaction fees, Rollups bundle together hundreds of transactions into a single transaction on L1, these transactions happen outside L1 but are later posted on the same, reducing gas fees upto 100x compared to the original.
One of the prime examples of a sidechain is Polygon’s PoS (proof-of-stake), which prides upon having ~10,000x lower gas fee per transaction and ~450x increase in transactions per second compared to Ethereum.
Here’s the final stage screenshot of deploying on the Polygon PoS network for reference:
Optimistic vs Zero-knowledge
Optimistic rollups are protocols that increase transaction output by bundling multiple transactions into batches, which are processed off-chain. After that, the transaction data is recorded on the main chain with data compression techniques that help lower cost and increase speed.
Optimistic rollups assume the transaction is valid and do not post any proof to Ethereum, like in a court case, these rollups follow the ‘innocent until proven guilty’ motto. They use a fraud-proving scheme known as a ‘challenge period’ in which parties submit a ‘fraud proof’ which validates the transaction, if a discrepancy is noted the transactions are redone and the party which submitted the fraudulent proof incurs a penalty.
The downside to optimistic rollups is that because of the challenge period, you must wait 7 days to perform the withdrawal to ethereum mainnet over the bridge.
Now, zk rollups do the exact opposite by posting validity proofs to the Ethereum mainnet, these proofs are ‘zero-knowledge’ proofs, allowing the details of the statement to be proven true without actually ever revealing the contents of a statement. This nullifies the requirement for a challenge period.
In this cryptography technique, the verifier provides the user with a hash H and requests the user to provide proof that it has the secret data that hashes to H, this protects proprietary information while allowing room for scalability.
Alas, all these pros but the major obstacle is that zk rollups are not compatible with the EVM yet, until of course, zkEVM’s swooped into the scene.
zkEVM’s
Imagine a world where an EVM enables all the benefits of a ZK rollup and does not affect the developer experience and finally solving the scalability trilemma. Stop right there please, zkEVM’s do just that. They handle the batching of transaction execution and post cryptographic proof to the Ethereum mainnet while maintaining EVM compatibility. This is huge as every smart contract on Ethereum or Polygon PoS can be deployed on a zkEVM, adding opportunity for scalability.
While still in its early stages, zkEVM shows great promise for the future of decentralized applications. As more developers adopt this technology and continue to refine its capabilities, we can expect to see even more exciting developments in the world of blockchain-based solutions.
In the end, zkEVM is just one of many innovations that are shaping the future of blockchain technology. By combining cryptographic techniques with smart contracts, we are laying the foundation for a more secure, decentralized, and private digital world. As such, we should remain optimistic about the future of this exciting and rapidly-evolving field.
This might just be the pièce de résistance for Web3 becoming mainstream.
