Bytes breakdown: vanilla Eth transaction (109+ bytes) vs ZK-Rollup transaction (8 bytes)
Ethereum Scalability and ZK-Rollups
During the last year, it has become clear that rollups will be the dominant scaling paradigm on the Ethereum public blockchain: with this in mind, Iden3 has developed and recently launched Hermez, a ZK-Rollup focused on scaling payments and token transfers on Ethereum.
Why the focus on transfers? It turns out that more than 50% of transactions on the Ethereum network are transfers, and a large percent of these are deposits 長期看Zk Rollup and withdrawals from exchanges. Demand could be reduced by a significant amount if exchanges started using rollups, or (in the ideal case) even agreed to meet on the same rollup.
In addition to significantly reducing transaction costs for users, this could have the added benefit of greatly reducing gas prices, and freeing up 長期看Zk Rollup the base chain for more complex contracts.
Zero-Knowledge Rollups
A ZK-Rollup, such as Hermez, is a layer 2 construction which uses the Ethereum blockchain for data storage instead of computation: - All funds are held by a smart contract on the main-chain.
For every batch of transactions, a ZK-SNARK cryptographic proof is generated off-chain.
This ZK-SNARK proves the validity of every transaction in the batch which means it is not necessary to rely on the Ethereum main-chain to verify each signature transaction.
The significance of this is that it allows verification to be carried out in constant time regardless of the number of transactions. This ability to verify proofs both efficiently and in constant time is at the heart of all ZK-Rollups.
In addition to this, all transaction data is published cheaply on-chain, without signatures — under call data. Since the data is published on-chain, there are no data availability problems that have plagued other L2 solutions such as Plasma.
Anyone can reconstruct the current state and history from this on-chain data. This prevents censorship and avoids the centralization of coordinators (rollup batch producers) — since anyone can build the state tree from scratch (and therefore become a coordinator).
Why the Need for ZK-Rollups?
Trust-minimised blockchain scaling mechanisms are sorely needed 長期看Zk Rollup if blockchain applications are ever to achieve mass adoption.
For context, the Ethereum network can handle approximately 15 transactions per second (tps), while the Visa network averages around 2,000 tps. This limitation in throughput directly affects the price paid for each transaction and constraints its adoption.
As outlined in an earlier Iden3 post, ZK-Rollups have the potential to increase the Ethereum network’s maximum tps by two orders of magnitude, making it comparable to the Visa network’s average.
How is 2000 tps Possible?
Blockchain scalability is improved by compressing each transaction to ~10 bytes: instead of including signatures on-chain, we send a ZK-SNARK which proves that 1000’s of signature verifications and other transaction validation checks have been correctly carried out off-chain.
Since signatures make up a large percentage of transaction costs (gas), in practice ZK-Rollups have the effect of significantly reducing the average cost per transaction. This allows Hermez to fit more transactions per batch, which results in a greater overall throughput.
Bytes breakdown: vanilla Eth transaction (109+ bytes) vs ZK-Rollup transaction (8 bytes)
Loopring Jumps 19% Amid Ethereum ZK-Rollup Hype
Loopring is up 18.9% today despite a decline across the broader crypto market. Hype surrounding ZK-Rollups may be the reason.
Recommended
Trending News
Dogecoin, Shiba Inu Prepare to Break Out
Israel 長期看Zk Rollup Will Ban Cash Payments Over $4,400 on Monday
Coinbase Will Pause ETH Deposits and Withdrawals During Ethereum Merge
W3 Storage Lab Raises $3m in Pre-seed Round
Crypto Token Launches Meditate-to-Earn Program Rewarding Holders for Self-Care
Key Takeaways
- Loopring's LRC token is up 18.9% while many major crypto assets are down.
- Loopring is a ZK-Rollup solution designed to help Ethereum scale. It aims to increase transaction speed and lower costs by using ZK-SNARKs to bundle transactions.
- Interest in ZK-Rollups is growing, with competitors zkSync and StarkWare recently announcing big raises. StarkWare's Starknet Alpha is scheduled to go live this month.
Share this article
Loopring is 長期看Zk Rollup one of several ZK-Rollup solutions built to help Ethereum scale.
Ethereum Scalability and ZK-Rollups
During the last year, it has become clear that rollups will be the dominant scaling paradigm on the Ethereum public blockchain: with this in mind, Iden3 has developed and recently launched Hermez, a ZK-Rollup focused on scaling payments and token transfers on Ethereum.
Why the focus on transfers? It turns out that more than 50% of transactions on the Ethereum network are transfers, and a large percent of these are deposits and withdrawals from exchanges. Demand could be reduced by a significant amount if exchanges started using rollups, or (in the ideal case) even agreed to meet on the same rollup.
In addition to significantly reducing transaction costs for users, this could have the added benefit of greatly reducing gas prices, and freeing up the base chain for more complex contracts.
Zero-Knowledge Rollups
A ZK-Rollup, such as Hermez, is a layer 2 construction which uses the Ethereum blockchain for data storage instead of computation: - All funds are held by a smart contract on the main-chain.
For every batch of transactions, a ZK-SNARK cryptographic proof is generated off-chain.
This ZK-SNARK 長期看Zk Rollup proves the validity of every transaction in the batch which means it is not necessary to rely on the Ethereum main-chain to verify each signature transaction.
The significance of this is that it allows verification to be carried out in constant time regardless of the number of transactions. This ability to verify proofs both efficiently and in constant time is at the heart of all ZK-Rollups.
In addition to this, all transaction data is published cheaply on-chain, without signatures — under call data. Since the data is published on-chain, there are no data availability problems that have plagued other L2 solutions such as Plasma.
Anyone can reconstruct the current state and history from this on-chain data. This prevents censorship and avoids the centralization of coordinators (rollup batch producers) — since anyone can build the state tree from scratch (and therefore become a coordinator).
Why the Need for ZK-Rollups?
Trust-minimised blockchain scaling mechanisms are sorely needed if blockchain applications 長期看Zk Rollup are ever to achieve mass adoption.
For context, the Ethereum network can handle approximately 15 transactions per second (tps), while the Visa network averages around 2,000 tps. This limitation in throughput directly affects the price paid for each transaction and constraints its adoption.
As outlined in an earlier Iden3 post, ZK-Rollups have the potential to increase the Ethereum network’s maximum tps by two orders of magnitude, making it comparable to the Visa network’s average.
How is 2000 tps Possible?
Blockchain scalability is improved by compressing each transaction 長期看Zk Rollup to ~10 bytes: instead of including signatures on-chain, we send a ZK-SNARK which proves that 1000’s of signature verifications and other transaction validation checks have been correctly carried out off-chain.
Since signatures make up a large percentage of transaction costs (gas), in practice ZK-Rollups have the effect of significantly reducing the average cost per transaction. This allows Hermez to fit more transactions per batch, which results in a greater overall throughput.
Bytes breakdown: vanilla Eth transaction (109+ bytes) vs ZK-Rollup transaction (8 bytes)
The Race to Scale Ethereum With zkEVM Rollups
StarkNet, zkSync, Polygon zkEVM, and Scroll are four key ZK-Rollup projects focused on scaling the Ethereum ecosystem.
Recommended
Trending News
Dogecoin, Shiba Inu Prepare to Break Out
Israel Will Ban Cash Payments Over $4,400 on Monday
Coinbase Will Pause ETH Deposits and Withdrawals During Ethereum Merge
Crypto Token Launches Meditate-to-Earn Program Rewarding Holders for Self-Care
DeFi Yield Protocol (DYP) Anticipates Metaverse Platform Launch with Listin.
Key Takeaways
- zkSync, StarkNet, Polygon zkEVM, and Scroll are some of the top ZK-Rollup projects building with EVM-compatibility in mind.
- Each project is tackling the questions of throughput, cryptographic proofs, and levels of EVM-compatibility in its own way.
- ZK-Rollups are expected to become one of Ethereum's most important scaling weapons over the years ahead.
Share this article
As Ethereum sets its sights on mass adoption, ZK-Rollup technology has emerged as a strong contender for scaling the blockchain, lowering transaction costs, and improving throughput. Crypto Briefing breaks down f our major ZK-Rollups compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine that are currently under development, each of which promises various advantages within the Ethereum ecosystem.
Tackling Ethereum’s Transaction Fees
Ethereum is facing scaling challenges.
Perhaps the single biggest barrier to widespread 長期看Zk Rollup 長期看Zk Rollup Ethereum adoption is the high cost of using the network, which has become an existential issue for the blockchain. The rise of DeFi protocols and NFTs has increased the demand for block space on Ethereum. Most transactions cost a few cents in 2019, but during the peak of the 2021 bull run, activities like minting NFTs on the blockchain would regularly come in at hundreds of dollars. As a result, many retail market participants found they were priced out of the network and turned to other networks like Solana, Avalanche, or Binance Smart Chain. Today, despite a downturn in network activity due to market conditions, simple transactions such as ETH transfers cost between $2 and $3, well above Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin’s 長期看Zk Rollup 長期看Zk Rollup ideal goal of less than $0.05 per transaction .
Rollups offer a way to relieve congestion on the Ethereum blockchain. That’s because they outsource data off-chain, process it, and send transactions back to Ethereum rather than relying on the base chain to process each transaction’s computational data. With rollups, Ethereum only has to verify the proofs themselves and not the entirety of the data, which frees up block space. Rollups 長期看Zk Rollup also allow transactions to be bundled together, which allows users to split gas fees.
Zero-Knowledge Rollups , also known as ZK-Rollups, use cryptographic proofs called ZK-SNARKS (“zero knowledge succinct arguments of knowledge”) to show to Ethereum mainnet that a transaction was processed. These zero-knowledge proofs can be verified quickly even though the underlying data would take a long time to analyze.
Some ZK-Rollup projects currently under development have announced their 長期看Zk Rollup intention to be compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine, offering Ethereum developers a way to import their smart contracts to the rollup without modifying them. But as Buterin explained in a recent blog post, not 長期看Zk Rollup all zkEVM projects are structured the same way: some optimize for complete EVM composability, and others for rapid 長期看Zk Rollup 長期看Zk Rollup throughput.
zkSync
Developed by Matter Labs, zkSync is one of the most anticipated zkEVM projects. Boasting 2,000 transactions per second, a 10-minute processing time between the rollup and Ethereum mainnet, and no upper bound limit to the value the rollup can securely handle, zkSync is a leading project in the field of zkEVMs.