The blockchain industry has evolved over the years, from the creation of Bitcoin in 2009 as a digital currency, to the release of Ethereum in 2015, adding smart contracts and programmable cryptocurrencies to the crypto space.
As the blockchain space continues to grow, scalability has been a major talking point for the most popular development blockchains like Ethereum. In response to this new protocols have come into the space with Layer 2 networks and ZK-Rollups showing the most promise for solving the scalability problem.
In this article, we’ll look at two platforms with Layer 2 networks and ZK-Rollups that are geared towards Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs) and crypto gaming.
Myria
Myria is a gaming-focused ecosystem of protocols and products, with its main protocol being an Ethereum Layer 2 that is being developed with the primary purposeof scaling blockchain games and their related assets. The Myria ecosystem also includes an NFT market as well as DEX.
The platform is building an ecosystem that includes free-to-play crypto games with NFT assets (such as skins) that can be moved and used between different games. One of the biggest issues when it comes to blockchain gaming is scalability, due to the high fees and slow transactions once the Ethereum network gets congested.
If gamers have to pay up to $70 just to move a character skin or NFT character, wide-scale adoption will be difficult. Even though average Ethereum transaction fees cost less than a dollar, the average fee can reach $12 which is still expensive, almost 1/4 the cost of a $60 AAA Game.
In order to address this, the platform is developing Myria Chain, the Ethereum L2 network that aims to reduce transaction fees and transaction times. Layer 2 networks work by taking transactions off the Layer 1 network (Ethereum) and running through the Layer 2 blockchain (Myria Chain in this case), which reduces the number of transactions the L1 needs to confirm.
Due to the L1 network dealing with fewer transactions, it is less likely to get congested, keeping fees low and transaction speeds fast. Another benefit of L2 networks is radically reduced fees and fast speeds on the L2 network itself since they are usually Proof-of-Stake blockchains, allowing users to send transactions for less than a cent with transactions taking only seconds to complete.
Myria Chain also uses Zero-Knowledge Rollups (ZK-Rollups) which work by taking thousands of transactions off the main chain (Myria Chain in this case), rolling them into a single transaction, and sending a validity proof back to the main chain as confirmation. This enables users to engage in blockchain and NFT gaming with low fees and fast speeds, whilst maintaining the security of the Ethereum network. Specifically, Myria Chain uses ZK-STARKs to bundle thousands of L2 transactions into a single transaction.
Immutable X
Immutable X is an Ethereum-based, Layer 2 scaling protocol built specifically to scale Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). This protocol shares some similarities with Myria when it comes to the purpose of its L2 platform. Whilst Myria is focused on scaling blockchain gaming, Immutable X is focused on scaling NFTs, however, the protocol was developed by the creators behind God’s Unchained, an NFT trading card game. The protocol also has a marketplace to trade in-game NFTs, starting first with NFTs from God’s Unchained.
Scaling on the Immutable X protocol is mainly carried out through its Zero Knowledge-Rollup scaling engine. Zero-Knowledge Rollups (also known as ZK-Rollups) are smart contracts that take multiple transactions off of the Ethereum blockchain and combine them together into a single transaction before submitting a SNARK (succinct non-interactive argument of knowledge) back to the main blockchain to prove the validity of the transaction. ZK-Rollupsmake it possible to boost Ethereum's scalability and user experience without compromising the blockchain's fundamental security.
Immutable X worked with StarkWare to develop its ZK-Rollup engine to help its users trade NFTs. In their iteration of ZK-Rollup technology, the protocol uses ZK-STARKs (Zero-Knowledge Scalable Transparent ARguments of Knowledge) as validity proofs, just like Myria Chain.
Users are given the ability, via the use of ZK-STARKs, to do calculations with a third party or communicate verified data with a third party without the data or computation being exposed to the third party in a fashion that is publicly verifiable.
For a long time, ZK-proof systems were built using ZK-SNARKs. Because of this, the ZK proof system needed to be originally set up by one or more trusted individuals, which resulted in the introduction of a vulnerability: the privacy of the whole system may be compromised by those "trusted people." By eliminating the necessity for a trusted setup, ZK-STARKs improve on this technology.
ZK-Rollups require an operator (Immutable X in this case) who is responsible for making the transactions on a network linear. This essentially means ordering transactions into a predictable and gradual sequence with no interruptions. The implementation of Zero-Knowledge technology will make it possible for users to trade NFTs on the Immutable X marketplace for very low fees with fast settlement times, which in turn should make wider-spread adoption of NFT and crypto games easier for users.
Conclusion
Myria and Immutable X have both built L2 and Zero Knowledge protocols for the scaling of NFT and blockchain games. By taking transactions off of the Ethereum blockchain and running them through their proprietary networks, they can leverage Ethereum's security (and popularity) as well as allow their users to engage in NFT and crypto gaming with very low costs and quick speeds.