TechFlow news — Offchain Labs co-founder Ed Felten published a blog post explaining his support for Optimistic Rollup.
He stated that Arbitrum chose Optimistic Rollup over ZK Rollup because Optimistic is more cost-effective, simpler, and more flexible.
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Optimistic Rollup has lower costs, as proof costs are always zero for honest participants, whereas ZK Rollup requires generating cryptographic proofs, which is more expensive.
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Optimistic is also simpler, as it relies on standard programming languages and tools, while ZK requires complex mathematics and cryptography.
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Finally, Optimistic is more flexible, enabling easier development of new features using standard tools, whereas ZK requires custom tools and programming approaches.
The finalization time is the same for both. Regarding cross-chain communication speed, ZK may be faster in certain cases, but there is no significant difference in most asset transfer scenarios.
