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The Big Three zkEVM Announcements: What You Need to Know And Potential Implications

Eshita Nandini, Tom DunleavyJul 22, 2022 ⋅ 7 min read

Key Insights

  • Polygon, Scroll, and zkSync all announced updates on the build of their zkEVMs.
  • Each of the three solutions presents different tradeoffs in their plans to scale Ethereum.
  • There have been multiple debates about what it really means to truly be a zkEVM and if any of these solutions meet the definition.
  • Overall zkEVMs will allow users to directly copy their smart contracts from Layer-1 to a Layer-2 zkEVM. Inheriting the speed and scalability of L2, while keeping the security and underlying proprieties of the L1.

This week was a busy one in the world of zkEVMs (zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machines) with three separate announcements by Polygon, Scroll, and zkSync. All projects are approaching building zkEVMs differently, with tradeoffs for each design.

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Eshita Nandini
eshita

Eshita is a Research Analyst at Messari focused on Web3 topics. Previously, she was a Venture Fellow at Bloomberg Beta and prior to that was working on data at Shareworks by Morgan Stanley.

Tom Dunleavy
dunleavy89

Tom is a Sr. Research Analyst at Messari. His primary focus is on Layer-1's as well as the relationship between traditional finance and crypto. Prior to joining Messari, Tom worked in Investment Consulting at Meketa and Investment Management at SSGA. Tom studied Finance at Bentley University and earned his CFA and CAIA Charters.

Mentioned Assets
Outline
  • Key Insights
  • Setting the Stage
  • TLDR on the Announcements
  • Not All zkEVMs are Built the Same
  • The zkEVM Open Debate
  • Implications of a “zkEVM” and the Road Ahead
  • Wrapping Up
Authors
Eshita Nandini
Eshita is a Research Analyst at Messari focused on Web3 topics. Previously, she was a Venture Fellow at Bloomberg Beta and prior to that was working on data at Shareworks by Morgan Stanley.
Tom Dunleavy
Tom is a Sr. Research Analyst at Messari. His primary focus is on Layer-1's as well as the relationship between traditional finance and crypto. Prior to joining Messari, Tom worked in Investment Consulting at Meketa and Investment Management at SSGA. Tom studied Finance at Bentley University and earned his CFA and CAIA Charters.
Mentioned Assets