Author:Tina
Editor: Xiaolu
Another top-level project, ZkSync, is launched. This is the last of the four top-level Ethereum Layer2 projects to be launched.
The launch of Arb, OP and STRK has benefited a group of airdrop participants, and the highly anticipated zkSync airdrop distribution plan has also been finalized. The airdrop was opened for application at 15:00 on June 17, and trading platforms such as Binance and gate have already launched ZK token transactions.
As the last of the four major Ethereum L2 projects to go online, ZkSync has attracted much attention from the market.
1. ZkSync Project Introduction
Founded in 2019, zkSync is an Ethereum Layer2 scaling solution developed by Matter Labs that preserves the security properties of the underlying blockchain by leveraging the latest generation of concise zero-knowledge proofs. All funds in zkSync are held by smart contracts on the main chain, while computation and storage transactions are performed off-chain. For each Rollup block, a state transition zero-knowledge proof (SNARK) is generated and verified by the main chain contract. This SNARK includes proof of validity for each transaction in the Rollup block.
As we all know, among the four major Layer2 projects, Arbitrum and Optimism belong to the optimistic (Optimistic Rollup) proof technology solutions, while StarkNet and ZkSync belong to the zero-knowledge proof solutions.
Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin is more positive about zero-knowledge proof in Ethereum's second-layer expansion plan. He once said that Optimistic Rollup will be a transitional solution, while Zero Knowledge Rollup is Ethereum's ultimate expansion plan.
2. Zksync Investors
According to data from the rootdata platform, ZkSync has completed four rounds of financing, with a total financing amount of US$258 million.
Let’s compare the financing amount with the other three of the four major Ethereum Layer2 kings:
Arbitrum has raised a total of $143.7 million;
Optimism has raised a total of $429.5 million;
StarkNet has raised a total of $261 million.
It can be seen that ZkSync’s financing amount is lower than Optimism and StarkNet, but higher than Arbitrum.
As a star project, ZkSync has brought together many top investment teams in the crypto. For example, a16z, Coinbase, OKX and other institutions have participated in the investment in this project.
3. ZK Token Design
The name of the ZkSync project token is ZK, and the total supply of tokens is 21 billion.
Among them, the number of airdrop tokens accounts for 17.5%.
The airdrop snapshot date is: March 24, 2024.
The claim period for airdrop tokens is from June 24, 2024 to January 3, 2025.
The specific distribution plan of ZK tokens is as follows:
1) 66.6% of ZK tokens will be allocated to the community, including:
17.5% of the tokens (approximately 3.675 billion) will be airdropped to the community in one go, and users will be able to receive tokens until January 3, 2025.
The remainder (49.1%) will be distributed over time through ecosystem initiatives managed by the ZKsync Foundation and the ZK Nation governance process to support the growing ecosystem as new users come on-chain, specifically:
Ecosystem Initiatives: 19.9%;
Token Assembly: 29.3%.
2) 33.3% of the total supply is allocated to investors and Matter Labs, including:
17.2% allocated to investors;
16.1% is allocated to the Matter Labs team.
Tokens allocated to investors and the team will be locked for the first year and then unlocked over a 3-year period between June 2025 and June 2028.
Judging from the Unlocks Schedule of ZK tokens, the next large unlock will not be until June 2025. There is no need to worry about large unlocks causing a market crash in the past year.
4. Comparison of the Four Major Ethereum L2 Kings
The launch time of ZK token was somewhat untimely. The launch of the token coincided with the 618 crypto crash. Coupled with a large number of airdropped tokens, the price of ZK token also fell below 0.2 US dollars at one point. Obviously, ZK was oversold.
Let’s compare the circulating market value and total circulating market value of the four major Ethereum Layer2 projects (data as of June 18):
ZK: Price: $0.22, market capitalization: $806 million, fully diluted market capitalization: $4.62 billion;
ARB: Price: $0.79, market capitalization: $2.3 billion, fully diluted market capitalization: $7.95 billion;
OP: Price: $1.81, market capitalization: $1.968 billion, fully diluted market capitalization: $7.778 billion;
STRK: The price is $0.748, the circulating market value is $972 million, and the fully diluted full circulating market value is $7.48 billion.
It can be seen that among the four major Ethereum Layer2 kings, ZK is currently relatively low in terms of both the circulating market value and the diluted full circulating market value. To a certain extent, this also means that ZK has relatively greater room for growth.
Moreover, many new coins recently launched on Binance have a market capitalization of around US$1 billion. However, ZK, as a star project and one of the four kings of Ethereum Layer2, has a market capitalization of only US$700 million after its launch, which is much lower than the market capitalization of STRK when it was first launched.
In addition, according to the data statistics of the l2beat platform, there is still a big gap between ZK TVL and ARB and OP, but compared with STRK, ZK TVL is more than twice that of STRK TVL, but the market value of ZK is lower than that of STRK.
In short, whether from the perspective of speculating on the new rather than the old, or based on the comparison of the market value and TVL data of the four major Ethereum Layer2 projects, ZK is relatively more cost-effective compared with the other three Layer2 projects.
PS This article does not constitute any investment advice
