Ethereum is where it all begins. L1 is way too slow. To ensure the validity of a transaction, every node must re-execute it multiple times. This limits scaling.
Rollups were the solution to scaling Ethereum by 2020. Vitalik’s blog on rollups from 2021 explains the optimistic and zk rolls ups that can scale Ethereum.
Zk rollups were superior in terms of technology, but they still cost too much to be used and were far behind.
So, optimistic rollups were the first to enter the market. The optimistic rollup assumes that all transactions will be valid until a challenge is made within the seven-day period.
The rollups were effective, but there was a hidden cost. It took longer for users to withdraw money after the transaction was completed. A lack of liquidity led to a poorer user experience, particularly with regard to chain interoperability.
While zk catches up, Polygon and zkSync are announcing zkEVMs. At ETHCC 2022, Polygon, zkSync and Scroll all announced zkEVMs, which enable Solidity devs to write code and prove the execution of the EVM — effectively allowing Ethereum to leverage zero knowledge technology.
Rollups zk started to really gain traction by 2023.
What makes zk-proofs superior to optimistic fraud-proofs? The zk-proofs are smaller than raw transaction data, which is much larger (>10 KB).
These highly compressed proofs, which use zk encryption to verify Ethereum transactions result in lower costs for data access and better scaling.
Proof generation is still costly, even though zk has taken off. According to zkstats.io the cost of generating a proof for zk in December 2023 averaged $80.21.
Forward to 2025. Proof costs dropped from $1.3 to $1.3, a 98% improvement.
What’s changed?
The zk stack has been disassembled into its core components.
The zkVMs have arrived. They speed up zk development and improve validity proof generation. It was difficult to create complex mathematical codes before zkVMs. “circuits” To prove EVM implementation,
ZkVMs, such as SP1, RISC 0, Nexus and OpenVM, today democratize zk-based development to all developers, including those without zk cryptographic knowledge (C++, Rust). In the early days, Solidity could only be developed on zk-rollups using zkEVMs. You can think of zkVMs more as a general concept rather than zkEVMs.
The market is a competitive place, and this has led to a decrease in the cost of producing proofs. Risc Zero Cysic Lagrange Succinct and other marketplaces operate many of the competitive marketplaces today. Some of these are currently in testnet while others are fully operational.
Zk L2s also use proof aggregation to amortize costs. This is done by combining many proofs into one proof, making the verification of that proof easier.
They are permissionless as well, so anyone who has a GPU can join, generate proofs and post a deposit. Previously, zk rollups used “centralized provers,” Meaning they rented GPU/FPGA Hardware from Google and Amazon.
As well, newer and better proof systems continue to emerge. The rules for constructing and verifying zk-proofs can be defined algorithmically by these proof systems. These proof systems are improving, and as a result, the zk verifications will be smaller. This leads to increased performance of zkVM.
There are also zk coprocessors that run on top of the zkVMs. They allow apps onchain that don’t exist in an environment with zk to benefit from the wonders zk has to offer. It does this by moving the computation offchain and running it asynchronously to the blockchain execution. It allows apps to calculate complex statistics, verify them using zk and post the proofs onchain.
Apps such as Frax, Azuki and Etherfi use Lagrange’s zk-coprocessor in order to circumvent the Ethereum L1’s limitations.
You have the answer. This is why the goal of zk should be to win.
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