After two years of development, a group of Ethereum idealists are about to launch their zero-knowledge EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) – Scroll – developed with Ethereum values in mind.
While several zero-knowledge EVMs already exist, Scroll co-founder Ye Zhang told Cointelegraph on Token2049 that the project is “idealistic” because the team adheres to the philosophies and principles that Ethereum has fostered.
Zhang said they have been working on this work primarily as a “labor of love,” driven by a shared vision of scaling Ethereum while staying true to its decentralized principles.
He added that the project has more human interest than simply solving computational problems. “We started in an open source, community-driven way,” he said.
“We can grow this community very organically and then scale our network effects, not in a very silly way, not in a very aggressive marketing-driven way.”
The new zkEVM is expected to be available in a few weeks and has undergone extensive testing and code audits. Zhang said that Scroll will be launched after some final testing, and major projects such as Uniswap and Aave are ready to be deployed on Scroll at launch.
The mathematician considers zk-rollups to be the “holy grail” or best-of-breed layer 2 scaling solution that’s incredibly cheap and secure.
However, Scroll is entering a crowded ecosystem that already has zkEVM solutions from Polygon, Immutable, StarkWare, and ConsenSys’ Linea (launched in August).
Zhang claims that some other systems, such as Linea, have “unproven” parts of the circuit, but believes Scroll provides “complete proof” of all Ethereum “opcodes” and transaction components.
“So it’s not just a comparison of compatibility, it’s a full demonstration of what we already have,” he said.
related: Buterin evaluates the impact of zk-EVM on decentralization and security
Scroll is a Layer-2 extension project that has been under development for two years. It uses zero-knowledge proofs to compress off-chain data, meaning only proofs are submitted on-chain, allowing for higher throughput.
As always, we’ve released another ecosystem update highlighting some of the latest projects joining the Scroll ecosystem
This week, we introduce DeFi aggregators and permissionless lending protocols. https://t.co/1G4ErzAB00
-Scroll (@Scroll_ZKP) September 16, 2023
EVM components are fully compatible with any existing Ethereum software and applications.
The initial setup will still involve some centralization, such as sequencers, but the roadmap will further decentralize over time, Zhang said.
Magazine: zkEVM attack!Cryptocurrency’s 10x moment
