It’s well-known that Ethereum needs support in order to scale. A variety of L2s ( ) have launched or are in development to improve Ethereum’s scalability. Among the most popular L2s are zero-knowledge-based rollups (also known as zk-rollups). layer twos Zk-rollups offer a solution that has both high scalability and minimal costs. In this article, we’ll define what zk-rollups are and review the latest in the market, the new ConsenSys zkEVM. This new zk-rollup — — makes building with zero-knowledge proofs easier than ever. a fully EVM-equivalent L2 by ConsenSys ConsenSys achieves this by allowing developers to port smart contracts easily, stay with the same toolset they already use, and bring users along with them smoothly — all while staying highly performant and cost-effective. If you don’t know a lot about zk-rollups, you’ll find how they work fascinating. They’re at the cutting edge of computer science. And if you do already know about zk-rollups, and you’re a Solidity developer, you’ll be interested in how the new ConsenSys zkEVM makes your dapp development a whole lot easier. It’s zk-rollup time! So let’s jump in. The Power of Zero-Knowledge Proofs Zk-rollups depend on zero-knowledge proofs. But what is a zero-knowledge proof? A zero-knowledge proof allows you to prove a statement is true — without sharing what the actual statement is, or how the truth was discovered. At its most basic, a prover passes secret information to an algorithm to compute the zero-knowledge proof. Then a verifier uses this proof with another algorithm to check that the prover actually knows the secret information. All this happens without revealing the actual information. There are a lot of details behind that above statement. if you want to understand the cryptographic magic behind how it all works. But for our purpose, what’s important are the use cases of zero-knowledge proofs. A few examples: Check out this article Anonymous payments — Traditional digital payments are not private, and even most crypto payments are on public blockchains. Zero-knowledge proofs offer a way to make truly private transactions. You can prove you paid for something … without revealing any details of the transaction. Identity protection — With zero-knowledge proofs, you can prove details of your personal identity while still keeping them private. For example, you can prove citizenship … without revealing your passport. And the most important use case for our purposes: Verifiable computation. What Is Verifiable Computation? Verifiable computation means you can have some other entity process computations for you and trust that the results are true … without knowing any of the details of the transaction. That means a layer 2 blockchain, such as the ConsenSys zkEVM, can become the outsourced computation layer for Ethereum. It can process a batch of transactions (much faster than Ethereum), create proof for the validity of the transactions, and submit just the results and the proof to Ethereum. Ethereum, since it has the proof, doesn’t need the details — nor does it need a way to prove that the results are true. So, instead of processing every transaction, Ethereum offloads the work to a separate chain. All Ethereum has to do is apply the results to its state. This vastly improves the speed and scalability of Ethereum. Exploring the New ConsenSys zkEVM and Why It’s Important Several zk-rollup L2s for Ethereum have already been released or are in progress. But the ConsenSys zkEVM could be the king. Let’s look at why: Type 2 ZK-EVM For one thing, it’s a — an evolution of zk-rollups. It’s faster and easier to use than Type 1 zk solutions. It offers better scalability and performance while still being fully EVM-equivalent. Type 2 ZK-EVM Traditionally with zk-proofs, it’s computationally expensive and slow for the prover to create proofs, which limits the capabilities and usefulness of the rollup. However, the ConsenSys zkEVM uses a — which means faster finality and seamless withdraws, all while retaining the security of Ethereum settlements. And it delivers ultra-low gas fees. recursion-friendly, lattice-based zkSNARK prover Solves the Problems of Traditional L2s Second, the ConsenSys zkEVM solves many of the practical problems of other L2s: Zero switching costs — It’s super easy to port smart contracts to the zkEVM. The zkEVM is EVM-equivalent down to the bytecode. So no rewriting code or smart contracts. You already know what you need to know to get started, and your current smart contracts already work. Easy to move your dApp users to the L2 — The zkEVM is supported by , the leading web3 wallet. So most of your users are probably already able to access the zkEVM. MetaMask Easy for devs — The zkEVM supports the most popular tools out of the box. You can build, test, debug, and deploy your smart contracts with , , , etc. All the tools you use now, you can keep using. And there is already a bridge to move tokens onto and off the network. Hardhat Infura Truffle It uses ETH for gas — There’s no native token to the zkEVM, so you don’t need to worry about new tokens, third-party transpilers, or custom middleware. It’s all open source! How to Get Started Using the ConsenSys zkEVM The zkEVM private testnet was released in December 2022 and is moving to public testnet on March 28th, 2023. It’s already processed transactions(and growing). 774,000 There are : uniswap, the graph, hop, and others. You can and . lots of dApps already read the documentation for the zkEVM deploy your own smart contract Conclusion It’s definitely time for zk-rollups to shine. They are evolving quickly and leading the way in helping Ethereum to scale. It’s a great time to jump in and learn how they work — and is a great place to start! building with the ConsenSys zkEVM Have a really great day!

Smart Contract Audits with ConsenSys Diligence Fuzzing - Fuzzing as a Service

Top 10 Resources for Learning Solidity

I ♥ writing code. Find me on GitLab.

Nominated for 2022 - HackerNoon Contributor of the Year - Javascript

Nominated for 2022 - Hackernoons Tech Storyteller of the Year

Nominated for 2022 - HackerNoon Contributor of the Year - Cloud Computing

Nominated for 2022 - HackerNoon Contributor of the Year - Heroku

Nominated for 2022 - HackerNoon Contributor of the Year - Design

Nominated for 2022 - HackerNoon Contributor of the Year - Salesforce

Too Long; Didn't Read

CTA: Download the FREE AI Productivity Shift report

The Power of Zero-Knowledge Proofs - Exploring the New ConsenSys zkEVM 

The Power of Zero-Knowledge Proofs - Exploring the New ConsenSys zkEVM

About Author

Comments

TOPICS

THIS ARTICLE WAS FEATURED IN

Related Stories

Untitled Story

5 Signs You’ve Built a Secretly Bad Architecture (And How to Fix It)

Top Crypto News from Asia- Aug 1st- Aug 4th

Building on Linea: A Step-By-Step Guide

My cover letter submission for the ConsenSys developer program (2018)

Crypto News of The Week: MetaMask is Planning a DAO, Bitcoin Bounced Back to $41,000, and More

5 Signs You’ve Built a Secretly Bad Architecture (And How to Fix It)

Top Crypto News from Asia- Aug 1st- Aug 4th

Building on Linea: A Step-By-Step Guide

My cover letter submission for the ConsenSys developer program (2018)

Crypto News of The Week: MetaMask is Planning a DAO, Bitcoin Bounced Back to $41,000, and More

Light-Mode

Classic

Newspaper

Dark-Mode

Neon Noir

Minty

HN StartUps