The technology of Ethereum scaling using zero-knowledge proof (zk), has moved rapidly from the theory stage to a functioning mainnet. Dueling Zero-Knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machines from Matter Labs, and Polygon launched in the same week.
ConsenSys – the Ethereum Blockchain Infrastructure Company – will soon follow, having recently launched its zkEVM on an Ethereum Testnet.
Zk rollups can be considered as a technological breakthrough, since zero-knowledge proves make it possible to determine whether information is valid or not without divulging the actual information.
In the case of Ethereum layer-2 rollsups, it means that Ethereum is able to validate transactions in bulk without disclosing any details about the particular transactions.
By compressing data and making better use of Ethereum’s blockspace, this type of technology reduces transaction costs.
How do zk rollups lower transaction fees?
Zk Rollups on Ethereum move the calculation and execution of Smart Contracts to another layer-2 Blockchain built on the top layer.
It means, instead of having Ethereum’s mainnet validators handle individual transactions, a rollup offloads this responsibility to an prover/verifier on layer-2.
“Anyone can download the data and check if it is correct for some period of time,” Blockworks Research is a company that was founded in 1992.
Unlike Ethereum mainnet, where more users and more transactions lead to increased gas fees, the costs of writing data to mainnet from a zk rollup in fact decline as the number of users increases since the otherwise fixed cost is divided between all users whose transactions are in a batch, DeFi researcher who goes by the pseudonym Ignas tweeted.
“When there are fewer transactions the fixed cost is distributed among fewer users, leading to higher average gas fees per transaction. As transaction volume increases, the fixed cost gets spread out, and fees drop,” Ignas said.
Mikhail Komarov founder of the zk Infrastructure Developer =nil Foundation agrees but has a warning.
“In terms of L-1 transactions, this is true. But a user pays an L-2 fee, not an L-1 fee,” Blockworks told Komarov. “This means a rollup can charge some larger or smaller end-user fee with the only difference of using its own L-2 token for that.”
Current zk rollups, however, do not charge fees in a native token — if they have one — but instead use ether.
Rollup implementations can have a huge impact on what gets returned to Ethereum Mainnet.
Bartek Kiepuszewski from L2Beat explained this on Twitter Tuesday. StarkNet and zkSync, on the other hand, only report changes to the EVM’s state that are a direct result of transactions.
“Right now, we have to differentiate between systems that are EVM-equivalent and EVM-compatible,” Kiepuszewski stated at Devcon Bogota October 2022. “I think we’re going to see a very interesting competition between systems that try to emulate the EVM as close as possible and systems that will prefer to make sure that the proving is optimized for the particular VM — and in this category I would definitely put zkSync and StarkNet. The competition between these two approaches is will be very interesting to watch.”
Posting data for layer-2 validation proofs costs a similar fee to transactions that are made on layer-1. Transactions are currently posted using Ethereum. “calldata” In a transaction. Blockworks said this situation will be different under EIP4844.
“It will be posted to these things called blobs that will have a separate fee market to normal transactions making it cheaper,” Blockworks Research is a company that was founded in 1992.
EIP-4844 (also known as Proto-Danksharding) will be part of the Ethereum major upgrade, Cancun, after Shanghai.
“I would say the only thing which can drive down data availability cost is a better compression (proof and circuits ‘quality’),” Komarov claimed. “The better the compression — the smaller the L-1 [data availability] charge.”
Blockworks Research has said that, in the end, improvements to technology and hardware will further reduce the cost of data availability. In the longer term, the transaction fee for Ethereum layer-2s with zk proofs is expected to decrease.
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