Podcast Notes | Interview with Scroll Co-Founder: Scroll Mainnet Launch and the Long-Term Commitment to zk-EVM Development
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Podcast Notes | Interview with Scroll Co-Founder: Scroll Mainnet Launch and the Long-Term Commitment to zk-EVM Development
The launch of Scroll's ZK-EVM marks a significant milestone in the Ethereum ecosystem, offering a highly EVM-compatible, efficient, and sustainable Layer 2 scaling solution.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsCompiled & Translated by: TechFlow
Scroll has just launched its zkEVM on the Ethereum mainnet!
In the latest episode of the Bankless podcast, hosts David and Ryan sat down with Sandy Peng, co-founder of Scroll, and Toghrul Maharramov, senior researcher at Scroll, to discuss the recent launch of Scroll’s ZK-EVM.
Hosts: David & Ryan, Bankless
Guests: Sandy Peng, Co-founder of Scroll; Toghrul Maharramov, Senior Researcher at Scroll
Program: Bankless Podcast
Original Title: "Scroll zkEVM LIVE on Ethereum"
Episode Link: Link
Release Date: October 18, 2023
From Concept to Mainnet: Scroll's Long-Term Vision
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A key feature of the Scroll mainnet is its high degree of compatibility with Ethereum. Scroll enhances Ethereum’s functionality using ZK technology, offering improved security and privacy protection.
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Toghrul emphasized that Scroll’s ZK-EVM evolved from a bold idea into a live mainnet solution through a long and challenging journey. Three years ago, building an EVM-equivalent ZK-EVM was considered nearly impossible—almost a crazy idea—but today that vision has become reality.
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The launch of Scroll’s ZK-EVM marks a significant milestone in the Ethereum ecosystem, delivering a highly efficient, long-term Layer 2 scaling solution with full EVM equivalence. This ensures seamless integration with the existing Ethereum ecosystem, greatly simplifying development and adoption.
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The Scroll team views ZK-EVM as a long-term solution, whereas Optimistic Rollups are seen more as temporary or short-term alternatives. Toghrul anticipates that over time, users will gradually migrate from Optimistic Rollups to ZK Rollups, which may offer superior advantages in areas such as security and efficiency.
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Another unique aspect of Scroll is its developer- and user-friendliness. EVM equivalence allows Scroll to leverage Ethereum’s rich ecosystem of documentation, tutorials, and open-source code, enabling faster and more efficient innovation without having to build everything from scratch or re-educate developers on new programming languages or paradigms.
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By maintaining strong compatibility with Ethereum, Scroll provides developers with a platform that is easy to migrate to and develop on. The team reused large portions of Ethereum’s codebase and tooling, ensuring application and infrastructure compatibility, making the transition from Ethereum to Scroll smooth, simple, and secure.
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The launch of the Scroll mainnet marks a new beginning, opening doors for meaningful feedback and iterative improvements. Sandy noted that the team has put in tremendous effort to reach this milestone. Scroll also looks forward to receiving input from the community and developers to further refine and enhance their ZK-EVM.
Revisiting ZK vs Optimistic
Advantages of ZK Rollups
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Faster transaction confirmation: ZK Rollups use zero-knowledge proofs to validate transactions. Once the proof is computed and verified, transactions are immediately confirmed, eliminating the need to wait for potential fraud proofs and significantly accelerating processing speed.
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Faster finality: ZK Rollups achieve finality in minutes, as they do not rely on challenge periods to verify transaction validity—this is highly beneficial for applications and users requiring rapid transaction confirmation.
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Lower fees: Due to their efficiency, ZK Rollups can offer lower transaction costs, benefiting both market makers and end users.
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Faster cross-chain interactions: ZK Rollups enable quicker cross-chain messaging and communication, especially from L2 to L1.
Limitations of Optimistic Rollups
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Challenge window: Optimistic Rollups require a challenge period during which others can prove a transaction is invalid—this typically takes several days.
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Withdrawal delays: ZK Rollups allow faster withdrawals, usually completed within 30 minutes, while Optimistic Rollups may take up to a week.
User Experience
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ZK Rollup: For most users, unless they are withdrawing from L2 to L1, they may not notice a difference between ZK and Optimistic Rollups. However, as L2 scales and throughput increases, the advantages of ZK Rollups will become increasingly apparent.
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Optimistic Rollup: While Optimistic Rollups do offer Layer 2 scaling, their challenge windows and slower withdrawal times may negatively impact user experience.
The Potential and Applications of ZK
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Efficiency and Performance: ZK proofs enable faster and more efficient transaction validation. With ZK, transaction correctness can be verified without revealing sensitive information, significantly boosting network efficiency and performance.
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Privacy: ZK proofs provide enhanced privacy protection. Users can prove they possess certain information or meet specific conditions without disclosing the actual data—critical for safeguarding user privacy and data security.
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Scalability: ZK proofs are a key technology for blockchain scalability. Through solutions like ZK Rollups, blockchains can achieve significantly higher throughput and scale while preserving security and decentralization.
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Interoperability: ZK proofs also facilitate interoperability across different blockchains and layers. Using ZK, data can be securely and efficiently transferred and verified across chains, promoting connectivity throughout the crypto ecosystem.
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Security: ZK proofs provide a mechanism to verify data correctness without exposing details. This not only protects privacy but also strengthens overall system security, reducing risks of fraud and attacks.
Scroll’s Next Steps and Token Plans
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With the Scroll mainnet now live, developers can begin deploying their dApps, and users can bridge funds from the Ethereum mainnet to Scroll via the public bridge UI.
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Scroll is committed to simplifying dApp deployment. They’ve launched a “copy, paste, and deploy” initiative aimed at reducing friction and barriers for developers launching applications.
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Scroll maintains a high degree of compatibility with Ethereum, allowing developers to easily migrate existing dApps to the Scroll platform. Some applications may even choose to run exclusively on Scroll due to its unique features and advantages.
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Over time, more applications are expected to deploy on Scroll. The benefits of ZK Rollups—such as faster transaction confirmation and lower fees—are likely to attract both developers and users.
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Scroll plans to continue innovating and improving its platform to meet the needs of developers and users, focusing on enhancing performance, security, and usability.
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Currently, Scroll is focused on stabilizing and optimizing the mainnet, improving performance, lowering transaction costs, and assessing the needs of developers and ecosystem projects.
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Security remains a top priority. Scroll is exploring multi-signature schemes and other security measures to strengthen the platform, including forced transactions and multi-prover systems. They are also researching ways to ensure smart contracts are free of vulnerabilities, such as using multiple verifiers to enhance bridge security.
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When asked about token plans, Toghrul responded, “Tokens and their issuance and management are subject to strict regulations in many countries and regions.” Given this, Toghrul and the Scroll team have chosen to proceed cautiously, avoiding public discussion of specific token details until all legal and compliance issues are resolved.
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