Recently , after the Starknet super airdrop came to an end, almost the entire world's attention fell on @zksync. As half of ZK-Rollup, zkSync still dominates all data indicators, and it is reasonable for the market to have high expectations for zkSync.
However, zkSync did not express its airdrop plan, but mentioned ZK is the Endgame many times. Is ZK technology really the endgame for layer 2? Next, let me talk about my views:
1) The technical debate between OP-Rollup and ZK-Rollup has been the focus of the past year or two. It is generally believed that the advantage of ZK-Rollup is that there is no 7-day challenge period. This is due to the fact that ZK technology can quickly convert transaction status between layer2 and the mainnet and ensure the validity of each transaction, while OP-Rollup can only assume the optimism of layer2 submitted transactions and leaves a 7-day challenge time window To ensure that layer2 transactions will not be malicious.
In fact, layer2 users are more sensitive to the instant conversion feature of transaction status only in Withdraw withdrawal scenarios. Most common interactions such as Swap and Transfer are often completed within layer2, and only part of the transaction data and status updates are submitted to the mainnet server. Network for final recording and determination, the user's perception of the 7-day challenge period is bound to be weak.
Over time, the OP-Rollup camp has become lax on key safety mechanisms during the 7-day challenge period, and there are few Battle-Tested 7-day challenge cases.
Perhaps in the view of many project developers in the OP department, as long as the market and ecological data are well operated, all problems related to "decentralization and the 7-day challenge" can be temporarily "ignored" by the market. In comparison, ZK’s advantage in security mechanisms is “innate”.
In my opinion, there is no problem for OP-Rollup to vigorously promote OP Stack and other strategies, but it must simultaneously speed up the implementation of the 7-day challenge plan. Otherwise, under the stimulation of OP-Stack's one-click link posting, the more Sequencer nodes in layer 2 submit subjects, The possibility of using the 7-day challenge to challenge potential security issues to do evil is also greater.
Extended reading: The OP Rollup challenge mechanism has never been challenged: Is the verification of Optimism too "optimistic"?
2) The technical performance of zkSync has been very good after the boojum upgrade. The upgrade from SNARK to STARK proof form is one aspect. The key is that the gas fee is indeed as expected, realizing the ZK vision that the larger the number of users, the cheaper the gas.
According to Growthpie data, in the past two months, zkSync's Gas has remained at a lower level among the four kings of layer 2. The average gas consumption per transaction has been controlled at around $0.12, which is already better than Arbitrum and Optimism. At that time, during the Inscription stress test phase, when the gas fees of other platforms increased to varying degrees with the influx of huge amounts of transaction traffic, only zkSync TPS reset to a new high, and the gas fees also declined.
In addition, after the Cancun upgrade Blob block is put into use, the advantage of zkSync's low gas fee will be further locked in. the reason is simple:
1. The cost structure of OP-Rollup is almost entirely based on the cost of data storage and verification submitted to the mainnet. Although Blob blocks will increase the amount of data storage and thereby reduce Gas costs, the use of Blob plug-in data packages is also market-oriented. It is foreseeable that many layer2 projects will increase the total gas price in order to compete for the priority use rights of Blob, thereby reducing the expectation of evenly sharing gas fees;
2. ZK-Rollup will also increase the total Gas consumption due to snatching Blob blocks. However, ZK does not need to store all Raw Data on the mainnet. The newly released storage space will store a larger amount of compressed SNARK proofs. This It will further increase the TPS delivered by ZK layer2 to the mainnet, thus making the evenly distributed Gas fee lower than OP.
Although the ZK off-chain Prover system also has certain cost factors, with the continuous algorithm optimization and hardware acceleration of general-purpose lightweight solutions such as @RiscZero @ProjectZKM, this cost is also continuing to decrease.
Obviously, in terms of data compression possibilities and ZK hardware acceleration, ZK series projects have more initiative in cost control, while OP series projects rely more on the DA data characteristics of the mainnet, which reduces gas fees. It is expected to be less imaginative than ZK.
Further reading: What are zk-SNARKs? IOSG: How zero-knowledge proofs enable continuous innovation
3) zkSync officials continue to work closely with NFT communities such as @pudgypenguins @apecoin @moonbirds. In the Official Twitter and Space live broadcast room, you can hear a lot about Account Abstraction, Paymaster to pay Gas, Onboard New Users incremental market, Gaming games, user experience UX and other keywords.
It can be seen that zkSync officials are actually intentionally guiding the market to view ZK from a long-term perspective, which also reflects zkSync's values in building a layer2 comprehensive chain: to continue to bring incremental markets and users to the mainnet.
Recently, many friends have discussed the potential impact of PayMaster. In my opinion, Account Abstraction has always been the key technology underlying zkSync. Based on the Paymaster Function, the project can directly subsidize Gas to users, which means that there may be a large number of applications in the future. The ZK ecological project will start a Gas subsidy war based on Paymaster, which will stimulate and attract more high-quality ecological projects. At the same time, it will also bring an opportunity for the development of projects in the zkSync ecosystem during the internal rollout.
The slow development of the ZK system ecosystem has been criticized. This is due to the high threshold of ZK circuit circuit technology, the cognitive gap in ZK data structure and algorithm optimization, etc., which has led to a relatively poor ZK-related application experience. Starknet’s move to move out of Tokenomics is intended to accelerate the solution of this problem through market-based incentive mechanisms.
According to L2beat data, after the STRK airdrop, Starknet's TVL quickly sprinted from Rank 10 to fourth place, and the total TVL increased 6 times to 1.3 billion US dollars. The value and significance of Tokenomics is immediate. The fundamentals are similar to Starknet. If zkSync also comes up with the killer tool of Tokenomics, and the officially inspired project team launches a round of Gas subsidy war based on Paymaster, the prosperity of the ZK ecosystem can be imagined.
4) The layer3 Hyperchain launched by zkSync and the Superchain strongly supported by Optimism are both long-term strategies used by the layer2 project team to enhance their own brand structure through the Stack strategy.
At present, SuperChain is focusing on the layer2 strategic alliance, with the goal of building many new layer2 projects based on the open source framework of OP Stack technology, and ultimately realizing the super chain architecture by sharing Sequencer components.
In comparison, Hyperchain is more flexible and can advance layer2+layer3 at the same time. It uses the layer2 strategy to expand allies with high demand for the Prover system, and then uses the higher-level layer3 application chain to seize high-frequency application markets such as games.
The application chain market is very important to ZK technology. The high TPS, low Gas fee and interactive experience of ZK series layer 2 are all determined by the native characteristics of the technology. ZK may not be dominant in pure financial DeFi applications, but if we look at a high degree of expansion, With the ultimate UX experience and a broader market for game applications, ZK-Rollup has a lot of room for imagination.
In short, ZK technology is the basic infra of the next generation of Mass Adoption era and the core catalyst for the competition of the next generation of application chains. If OP-Rollup relies on Tokenomics and other factors to set off the craze of Stack's one-click chain issuance, making it the main focus before the Cancun upgrade, then after the Cancun upgrade, many factors such as technology, market, and ecology will promote ZK-Rollup to become the most popular in the layer 2 market. Handsome boy.
Let Starkent's bullets fly for a while, zkSync is gathering momentum, ZK is the Endgame!
