A few million constraints for Man, unconstrained scalability for Mankind
Good Morning Saints,
Hope you’re having a wonderful weekend.
If you’re reading this, you’re always one of the chosen Saints and you’re special.
Here’s our recipe for today:
The present state of L2s: polygon zkEVM launches, zkSync Era is live, Taiko Testnet 2 is live, ConsenSys launches a zkEVM “Linea”, Scroll deploys HOP protocol on the zkEVM and Alpha testnet coming.
The DeFI Saint Recap: Vaultka hedge vaults, Roseon migrating to Arbitrum.
Twitter Alpha: How to fall asleep in 2 mins or less and many more.
The present state of L2s
Polygon zkEVM is live
What a perfect time it has been as almost all is happening in Q1 2023, Arbitrum Airdrop went live on 23rd March and just a few days after that, Polygon zkEVM went live on 27th March.
This is the first type 2 zkEVM going live on Mainnet and isn’t that a thing of beauty?
Polygon zkEVM is building the type 2 zkEVM which is Fully EVM Equivalent.
Polygon and scroll are building the type 2 zkEVM, type 2 zkEVMs would look like Ethereum on the outside but have slight modifications on the inside to speed up proof generation. I.e to say that Developers can build on polygon zkEVM as they would on Ethereum.
According to L2 Beats, Polygon zkEVM is currently ranked 18th in terms of TVL, but I expect to see this move easily to Top 10 before 2023 runs out.
Vitalik performed his first transaction of the polygon zkEVM mainnet with the saying “A few million constraint for man, unconstrained scalability for mankind”
https://zkevm.polygonscan.com/tx/0x18db0b46e46777b5b369460be229b0704abe7d24bf88dbfee99054c43b0c121c
Polygon zkEVM possesses these features as a type 2 zkEVM which makes it unique:
Permissionless and Public
Fast Finality
Low Cost: harnesses the power of ZK proofs to reduce txn cost
EVM Equivalence
Also, Polygon zkEVM bug bounty is ongoing
https://polygon.technology/blog/bug-bounty-for-polygon-zkevm
To read more on polygon zkEVM, Here’s a thread that will simplify it for you
zkSync Era is live
zkSync Era which was previously live on 16th Feb but for builders, now went live fully on Mainnet (24th March) for everyone.
it was the first ever zkEVM to launch and zkSync is building the type 4 zkEVM which is the High-Level Language Equivalent and friendly known as close cousins to EVM.
it works by supporting compatibility with the Ethereum coding language (Solidity and vyper) and then transpiles into another language it understands (Yul).
zkSync Era is currently ranked 7th according to L2 Beats and has a TVL of $91M, it has increased enormously after Arbitrum Airdrop due to much speculation for zkSync Airdrop to follow the same trail.
Below are some important design architecture of zkSync Era
Native Account Abstraction
Powerful LLVM Complier
Data compression
Hyperscalability
The Native Account Abstraction brings a whole new evolution towards development of smart contract account with improved UX, flexibility and greater security.
zkSync AA builds on the vision of EIP-4337 but with more improved functionalities.
The aim of EIP-4337 is to improve these limitations of End users Account known as EOA (Externally owned account) e.g metamask wallet
These limitations are:
Coupled with a signer
Verification logic is hardcoded in the EVM
No way to recover a lost account
Now zkSync Account Abstraction takes the EIP-4337 approach, modifies it with added functionalities to do all these below:
Replacing seed phrases with social recovery
use of different authentication method like biometrics
Integrating allowlist and scam blocklists
Scheduling one-time & recurring txs
Creating infinite account customizations
Paying gas in ERC20s with Paymasters.
The first usecase of AA was first used in ETH Denver
The Powerful LLVM Compiler helps Developers as they don’t need to rewrite the code in a new language or use different tooling.
zkSync Era leverages the data compression approach which helps it to publish state differences instead of Txn input.
Taiko Testnet 2 is live
Taiko launches its 2nd testnet “Askja” after its 1st testnet “snaefellsjökull” went live on 22nd Dec, 2022.
Taiko 2 testnet focuses on the concept of permissionless provers
Taiko is building the Type 1 zkEVM which is Fully Ethereum Equivalent) and this type prioritizes Ethereum Equivalence over ZK prover speed.
ConsenSys launches a zkEVM “Lineabuild”
Linea is a zkRollup zkEVM powered by ConsenSys, it will enable developers to build scalable dapps or migrate existing ones without constraints.
Linea testnet also went live in January and since then has reached a major milestone of hitting 1.5M txn in the first week.
Linea is creating a versatile zkEVM which can use in these areas
Linea testnet is still live and want to participate, you can here
Scroll Deploys Hop Protocol on its zkEVM
Scroll is building the type 2 zkEVM, just like polygon and very similar to it at the bytecode level but still on testnet.
Scroll aims to launch on Mainnet with decentralized sequencers and not like some optimistic rollups that haven’t been implemented yet.
The advantage of decentralizing these sequencers is to reduce centralization risks.
Not just that, Scroll is also working on decentralizing its prover and you can read more here.
Scroll testnet is still live on pre-Alpha testnet and will be launching on Goerli in the coming months and then Mainnet in Q3 which is already confirmed.
It also passed its proposal on deploying Hop Bridge on its zkEVM
The DeFI Saint Recap
The past few weeks have been insane, lots of exciting to talk about, but here are just a few to keep in my mind.
IMO, I feel hedging isn’t talked about well enough as most DeFI users/Protocols don’t really know about that or utilize this concept to its full potential.
Following the recent events in the market, like the depegs, market downturns e.t.c proper knowledge of hedging can help you mitigate the risks associated to that.
Here, I found an interesting protocol who’s building the ultimate hedge vault for all DeFI yields.
Secondly, Roseon Finance which is building the largest gamified Perp DEX is migrating to Arbitrum from BSC, we’ve seen a major narrative shift towards the arbitrum ecosystem.
$VELA from Metis migrated to Arbitrum and pulled 33x and now setting up to become the top 3 largest Derivatives DEX on Arbitrum.
Twitter Alpha
Here are some of the Important Alpha, I’ve gathered on Twitter.
Here, I didn’t specifically want to focus on just CT because they’re lots of Twitter alpha curatooors and aggregatooors out there.
I want it to be diversified because aside CT, our healthy life, relationship and family ties are important.
If you’re having issues trying not to get some sleep like me, here is an alpha for us
Also, I know you’re still coping after Arbitrum Airdrop, don’t miss these next set of Airdrops
Thanks for reading and if you like it, do leave feedback and forward it to your Friends. There is love in Sharing and see you next time.
DeFI Saint
Founder, The Saints Creed