Polygon zkEVM uses ETH to pay GAS fees, and Matic will be used for governance on the Polygon ecological chain.
Author: Grapefruit, ChainCatcher
On March 27, the Polygon zkEVM Mainnet beta version (Beta) was officially launched. Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin has completed his first transaction on the Polygon zkEVM mainnet.
However, the price of Matic tokens did not rise according to user expectations. Instead, it fell by 5% within 24 hours, and the current price is $1.04. Of course, this is affected by the broader market to a certain extent. The main reason is that it is only a beta version at present, and it may be necessary to wait for the Mainnet to be officially launched to truly see the impact.
Compared with Binance's FUD incident, the market's attention to the beta version of the zkEVM Mainnet does not seem to be high. Nevertheless, the release of the Polygon zkEVM Mainnet shows that the ZK Rollup expansion solution has made a major breakthrough in compatibility with EVM.
The Polygon zkEVM Mainnet can seamlessly cooperate with most existing Ethereum smart contracts, development tools and wallets, supporting Ethereum developers to migrate applications to the chain with one click; users can also use the "zkEVM" through the familiar Ethereum wallet -testnet RPC" nodes to experience its on-chain ecological applications.
According to the Polygon zkEVM browser, in less than 24 hours since the beta version of the Mainnet was launched, 7821 transactions have been completed, 598 batches of transactions have been submitted, and 7873 blocks have been generated.
Polygon zkEVM principle
Polygon zkEVM is an Ethereum Layer 2 zkEVM expansion solution based on ZK Rollup technology. ZK Rollup uses the "Zero-knowledge Proof" verification method to implement Rollup 's expansion solution.
Specifically, under the ZK Rollup expansion scheme, off-chain (Layer 2) executes transactions and completes complex calculations. After batch processing and compressing multiple transaction data, a "Zero-knowledge Proof" result of off-chain calculations will be created and submitted to The Mainnet(Layer 1) performs proof verification, and the verifier on the main network can quickly check whether the proof is correct, and store part of the data on the main network to share the security of the Mainnet.
The data verification method of Zero-knowledge Proof is the important difference between Optimistic Rollup and ZK Rollup . The former uses "fraud proof", which requires a dissent period, so the transfer from L2 to L1 requires a waiting period; the latter uses a Zero-knowledge Proof algorithm, which can check the validity of the data in real time, without any waiting for the transfer.
However, due to the complexity of the Zero-knowledge Proof algorithm used by ZK Rollup , it is not compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), which makes applications on Ethereum want to be deployed on this chain. Developers not only need to rebuild the application but also need to relearn The underlying code language applicable to this solution can be described as time-consuming and labor-intensive. This is why it has been said that "the expansion plan looks at Optimistic Rollup in the short term and ZK Rollup in the long term".
In order to solve this problem of compatibility with EVM, some ZK Rollup series expansion solutions have redesigned the underlying programming language, and some have developed special compilers to achieve compatibility.
In addition to Polygon zkEVM, many projects in the market are already researching and deploying zkEVM related products, and are competing to launch the "first" fully functional zkEVM. For example, on March 24, the zkSync Era Mainnet was officially released and opened to users. The Mainnet is a zkEVM solution; in February, Scroll zkEVM announced that its Alpha testnet is now live on Goerli; StarkNet is building an EVM-compatible The compiler, the Mainnet is about to be released and so on.
So, how does Polygon zkEVM differ from these zkEVM projects?
Polygon zkEVM is completely equivalent to EVM, that is, developers can migrate EVM-compatible on-chain applications to this chain without modifying any code, and can also use all Ethereum tools to work seamlessly on the zkEVM chain.
What does the equivalent level of ZK Rollup and EVM mean?
ZK Rollups, which is truly equivalent to the EVM, provides developers with the same experience as developing on Ethereum, allowing developers to use all the same tools and frameworks used when developing on the Ethereum mainnet without having to worry about L1 contracts in L2 Interrupted while deploying on-chain. This is critical for developers because it means much less overhead when migrating from L1 to L2. Users can also benefit from the EVM equivalent chain. Users of the EVM equivalent chain can use the familiar wallets and tools on the Ethereum mainnet.
In August last year, Vitalik, the founder of Ethereum, published a blog titled "The different types of ZK-EVMs different types of ZK-EVM", dividing zkEVM compatibility into four categories: fully equivalent Ethereum, fully equivalent to EVM, almost equivalent to EVM and high-level programming language equivalent.
On February 15th, Polygon officially issued a document stating that Polygon zkEVM has passed 100% of the Ethereum test vectors applicable to zkEVM. Developers do not need to modify or rewrite any code, and all Ethereum tools can work seamlessly with Polygon zkEVM. Fully equivalent to EVM.
How will Polygon zkEVM affect Polygon ecology?
In addition to product and technological innovations that deserve attention, most ordinary users are more concerned about the impact of the launch of the Polygon zkEVM Mainnet Beta on the original Polygon PoS sidechain and the Polygon ecological token Matic ?
According to DefiLlama data, as of March 28, the value of encrypted assets (TVL) locked on the Polygon PoS chain was 1.064 billion US dollars, ranking fourth in the entire public chain track, and the number of active addresses on the 24-hour chain was 360,000 . However, TVL has fallen by around 8% in the past 30 days.
The currency price of Matic and the data performance of TVL on the chain seem to reflect the general attention of the Polygon zkEVM market.
In addition, some people questioned: "Will Polygon zkEVM replace Polygon POS when it comes out?"
Polygon 's official answer to this is "NO", indicating that zkEVM is not used to replace the POS side chain.
Polygon co-founder Mihailo Bjelic also said in an interview, "The launch of Polygon zkEVM will be a separate block network, and the Polygon POS chain will continue to operate as a side chain. There will be two parallel networks in the Polygon ecosystem, With different value propositions, namely features and trade-offs, developers can choose the network according to the security, scalability and transaction fees. However, the POS side chain is not as secure as ZK Rollup , because ZK Rollup will store its transaction data It is stored on the Ethereum main chain, which inherits the same underlying security as the Ethereum blockchain; the data of the POS side chain exists on its own chain, rather than not being stored on Ethereum.”
In addition, Mihailo Bjelic also added that the Polygon POS chain is planned to carry out some ZK-based enhancements, and the blockchain bets that this scaling technology can promote the development of its ecosystem. Explore how to integrate ZK technology into the Polygon POS chain to improve the security of the POS chain. However, he also said that if Polygon POS becomes compatible with ZK, it just uses proofs like ZK Rollups to ensure that transactions are not cheated, and it still does not store data on Ethereum, but stores it on its own network or on a separate network off the other chain. Unlike ZK Rollup , it does not store data on Ethereum, but on a separate network off-chain.
Since Polygon zkEVM is a separate block network, many users are confused, will it issue separate tokens?
PolygonzkEVM stated in the official introduction document that the native token ETH is used to pay the GAS fee on the zkEVM chain. Matic can be used for on-chain pledge governance. Regarding whether to issue new tokens, Sandeep Nailwal, a Polygon co-creator, tweeted earlier, "There are too many people asking about tokens, Matic will become the on-chain pledge token in the Polygon ecosystem, and the default on-chain GAS fee The token is ETH."
From this point of view, the role of Matic in the Polygon ecosystem is governance Token, which is mainly used for the safe operation and maintenance of the Polygon zkEVM network and other chains. For example, pledge Matic on the Polygon POS side chain to become an operation node; pledge Matic on zkEVM Obtain the sorting right to submit transaction data, etc. ETH is only used as a means of payment for the GAS fee on the chain.
What are the ecological applications on the Polygon zkEVM chain?
According to zkRollup's high security, low GAS fee, real-time verification of transaction data, and no need to wait for transfers, the Polygon zkEVM chain is more suitable for building DeFi, NFT, Gamefi and enterprise applications, payment and other applications.
At present, Polygon zkEVM has officially announced many cooperative ecosystems. On March 24th, Web3 game developer zkMeta will use zkEVM on the Polygon network to build a dedicated zkRollup network for GameFi; on March 20th, the game public chain Immutable announced that it will build a dedicated game zkEVM game blockchain with Polygon ; on March 28th, Layer2 cross- Rollup bridge Orbiter Finance announced that it has integrated the Polygon zkEVM network, allowing users to transfer assets Cross-chain between Polygon zkEVM and other supported networks.
In addition to cooperative projects, there are also native Cross-chain bridges, DEX and other products on the Polygon zkEVM chain.
The official Cross-chain bridge zkEVM Bridge - supports users to transfer assets between L1 and zkEVM (L2). Currently, users are only supported to transfer ETH between zkEVM-testnet and Ethereum Goerli Testnet.
Clober, a decentralized trading platform, is a native Order-book DEX on the zkEVM chain, which can realize order matching and transaction settlement on the chain.
The lending application 0VIX is an over-collateralized lending platform that supports users built on zkEVM to deposit or mortgage assets.
In addition, in order to commemorate the launch of the beta version of the zkEVM Mainnet , Polygon officially released a commemorative NFT "To Ethereum, with Love", which is now open for casting. You may wish to experience it on Mint first.
