Introducing zk rollup: 4 Simple awesome guides to understanding zk rollup.
The adoption of blockchain technology since bitcoin’s creation in 2009 has grown over the years.
Due to its significance and benefits attached, the technology has rapidly been adopted and utilized by the masses.
Amongst many things which the blockchain provides, including security, decentralization, efficiency, and transparency to name a few.
It comes with its own fair share of limitations when dealing with carrying out transactions or having to pay an extra amount of transaction fee (gas fee) to speed track your transaction.
In some blockchains, the gas fee in executing a transaction is really high.
Take Ethereum for instance were carrying out even low transactions can accumulate huge sums of gas fees. The gas fees are paid in Ethereum’s native currency, ether (ETH).
Let’s take a turn in the NFT space.
Bored Ape Yacht Club’s metaverse NFTs cost buyers $181 million in “gas” fees.
Some paid transaction fees more than five times higher than the cost of the purchased item.
Gas prices fluctuate based on demand and supply, so when the demand for NFT surges on the blockchain, the network’s built-in fee system kicks in.
Also, due to the mass adoption of public/permissionless blockchain networks, most of these blockchains experience challenges/inconsistencies in scalability (throughput).
Thus having a high amount of users on the blockchain without integrating protocols, mechanisms, or algorithms that can actually make this blockchain scale will in turn cause low throughput in the blockchain.
Take bitcoin, for instance, this blockchain has a throughput of about 5 TPS and Ethereum about 15 TPS(transactions per second).
This is actually very low compared to some blockchain networks with over thousands of TPS.
Introduction to zk rollup
Blockchain technology is innovating, everyday people vent into this great technology to utilize its opportunities because it is highly decentralized, secure, and scalable.
Although scalability has been a persistent issue in some blockchains. Due to the mass adoption of the Ethereum blockchain, its developers and researchers have been experimenting with various scaling methods in order to improve network performance and all its inconsistencies with scalability.
The blockchain is said to implement zk rollups as a scaling solution.
What is zk rollup?
Zk rollup (zero-knowledge rollups) is a Layer 2 scaling solution that allows blockchains to validate transactions faster while keeping gas fees minimum.
Zk-rollups outperform traditional Layer 1 blockchains such as Ethereum because they combine on and off-chain processes.
It accomplishes this by removing hundreds of transactions from the main blockchain i.e. roll-up transactions are executed on a separate chain.
It then combines them into a single transaction before returning validation proof to the main blockchain and recording it.
How zk-rollups work.
1. Takes the data: when there are so many transactions pilled up on the main chain some of these computations move off-chain which in turn allows for processing more transactions, as roll-up transactions are executed on a separate chain i.e. layer 2.
2. Batching of transactions: involves bringing multiple transactions on the blockchain together by compressing it and the gas fees shared across all the participants making it a fraction of whatever transaction you want to execute.
3. Rolls it up to the main chain in a single batch: this uses a cryptographic snark proof to hide sensitive information to protect the network from malicious nodes, a validity proof is also generated, prooving that the executed transaction is valid before it can be recorded on the mainchain.
zk-rollups complete simultaneously multiple transactions, this significantly reduces costs and speeds up the processing time.
Guides to understanding zk rollup.
ZK-Rollups offer a vast number of benefits.
- Firstly, there is faster transaction finality, the time required to receive confirmation that a blockchain transaction is final and won’t be altered or canceled.
- It also provides significantly higher throughput and scalability, since very little data is required for each transaction, meaning faster and more efficient processing as minimal information is getting communicated between nodes.
- There are also faster withdrawal times as validity proofs certify transaction data as well as cheaper transaction fees since gas is shared by users whose transactions are rolled up and bundled together.
- Since zk-rollups are “zero-knowledge”, data retrieval only requires the validity proof stored on Layer 1 and not every piece of transactional data. This means that they can remain decentralized and secure.
Platforms that implement zk-Rollup
zkSYNC
zkSync is a Layer 2 scaling solution on the Ethereum network that uses ZK-Rollup technology to provide lower-cost, faster transactions.
It processes transactions off-chain with a throughput of 2,000+ transactions per second while maintaining security, and it charges extremely low gas fees equal to 1% of Ethereum gas.
zkSync, which is secured by the main Ethereum blockchain, enables the easy, frictionless transfer of crypto between Layer 1 and Layer 2 at any time and with no delays.
LOOPRING (LRC)
Loopring is a Layer-2 scaling protocol for decentralized exchanges (DEXs) based on the Ethereum blockchain that can handle thousands of trades per second and has a peak of about 2025 TPS.
Zk-rollup is the driving force behind Loopring, Its technology can be used as a protocol layer across DEXs, the platform also provides Loopring Exchange, a non-custodial trading platform that offers secure, high-speed trades with no gas fees.
Unlike other decentralized exchanges, Loopring uses ZK-Rollups to enable exchanges to validate blocks off-chain. Because computations are completed in this manner, fewer transactions are sent to the Ethereum network, allowing for faster and cheaper trades.
IMMUTABLE X (IMX)
The Immutable X platform is a Layer 2 scaling solution for trading Ethereum non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in the gaming industry.
It uses zk-Rollups to provide instant trade confirmation, has no gas fees for NFT trading, and can process over 9,000 transactions per second. Users can set their own trading fees on Immutable X, and any NFT created or traded on Immutable X is completely carbon neutral.
zk rollups are the future of scalability in blockchains and blockchains looking to scale can leverage this great technology.
