Layer 2 Sets March 27 Launch Date for Ethereum Scaling Offering
Polygon, the Layer 2 blockchain, plans to ship an Ethereum-compatible rollup powered by zero-knowledge proofs on March 27, the event group mentioned on Tuesday.
The providing, which known as a zkEVM, is anticipated to supply enhanced privateness options and validate transactions quicker than different Ethereum scaling options. Unlike different L2s powered by zero-knowledge proofs, builders will simply be capable to deploy code written for Ethereum on Polygon’s providing.
‘Intense and Inspiring’
“After more than a year of intense and inspiring research, development, and testing, we are incredibly proud to launch the first-ever zkEVM mainnet,” Mihailo Bjelic, Polygon’s co-founder, said onTwitter.
The DeFi neighborhood is relying on rollups to scale Ethereum, which, regardless of its ubiquity, has confirmed in poor health geared up to deal with the workload for decentralized finance. Rollups work by bundling collectively transactions on a Layer 2 community earlier than submitting the bundle to Ethereum’s mainnet for processing. In different phrases, this innovation could also be essential in enabling Ethereum to satisfy its promise.
What Is Polygon?
A Step-by-Step Guide to One of DeFi Most Popular Blockchains
Arbitrum and Optimism, the highest Layer 2 networks by whole worth locked, each use optimistic rollups. Optimistic rollups supply simple compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), Ethereum’s core good contract engine — which means builders can simply port their from Ethereum’s mainnet to Layer 2.
Rollups powered by zero-knowledge proofs have lengthy been touted because the holy grail for Ethereum scaling attributable to their improved efficiency and quicker settlement in comparison with optimistic rollups.
Next Bull Cycle
“[ZkEVMs] will definitely help scale Ethereum to support more transactions in the future and will be a sorely needed addition to support the next bull cycle,” Bobby Ong, co-founder of CoinGecko, informed The Defiant.
Ong added that the groups which are earliest to safe zkEVM market share will get pleasure from a big first-mover benefit over their opponents.
However, current options aren’t appropriate with the EVM, which means builders traditionally have wanted to construct code from scratch to deploy it on ZK-rollups.

Hayes Shares Why He Loves GMX and Is Bullish on DeFi
Crypto Investor is No. 1 Individual Investor in Yield-generating Token
But on July 20, 2022, Scroll, Polygon, and Matter Labs all introduced they had been growing rollups secured by zero-knowledge proofs, or zkEVMs. Consensys, the blockchain software program firm chaired by Ethereum co-founder, Joseph Lubin, additionally revealed it was engaged on a zkEVM in November.
While Polygon is the primary group to publicly reveal a date for the launch of its zkEVM, Scroll has outpaced its rivals when it comes to testnet adoption.
Driven by Speculation
More than 900,000 distinctive wallets have interacted with the testnet for Scroll’s zkEVM, in comparison with 544,309 for Matter Labs’ zkSync 2.0 testnet, 85,166 for Polygon, and almost 20,000 for Consensys, in accordance with Messari.
However, the excessive ranges of testnet exercise for Scroll and zkSync 2.0 could also be pushed by hypothesis that the initiatives might airdrop native tokens to early adopters sooner or later.
Zero-knowledge proofs are a privacy-preserving encryption methodology that was pioneered within the Eighties however struggled to seek out product-market-fit till Zcoin and Zcash leveraged the know-how for privateness cash in 2016.