The Ethereum Layer 2 project zkSync sent an email to users in the early morning of March 30th, Beijing time, to update the roadmap and timeline of zkSync 2.0, indicating that it will release a public testnet in May 2021, and strive to launch the mainnet in August 2021.
In addition to zkSync 2.0, zkSync said it will continue to update zkSync 1.x, and will release NFT and Swap functions on the mainnet in the spring of 2021. The NFT function should be launched on the mainnet in May. In terms of Swap, zkSync said that it will not provide Swap with AMM functionality because it is easy to implement in 2.0 and does not want to compete with projects seeking to adopt zkSync.
Golden Finance takes you a quick overview of the zkSync 2.0 roadmap and the new features of zkSync 1.x.
zkSync said that the mission of zkSync 2.0 is based on the programming model and composability of EVM.
From the perspective of users and developers, the design of zkSync 2.0 is actually no different from EVM: users can keep their existing Ethereum addresses; each account has a state; contracts can call each other through atomic transactions, etc.
Expectations for zkSync 2.0 1. Portability of existing Solidity source code
Great progress has been made in the realization of the new Turing-complete ZincVM. In addition to the existing Zinc programming language, it is now possible to compile anything that can generate an intermediate form of Yul (hello, Solidity!).
ZincVM is being optimized, and I hope it can easily support other programming languages such as Rust in the future. It is expected that most Solidity contracts can be compiled without modification or with only minimal changes.
2. Native support for all Ethereum wallets
zkSync 2.0 will natively support Ethereum's ECDSA signature scheme (thanks to the efficient circuit implementation of lookup based on PLONK). This means that all Ethereum wallets can be used directly, no need to sign with a key in the browser, and no special integration work is required.
3. 20000 + TPS-scalability beyond zkRollup
The prosperity of NFT implies that it will soon be adopted by the mainstream. However, due to the inherent limitations of data availability on the chain, attracting millions of new mainstream users is a challenge that Rollup (whether ZK or optimistic Rollup) simply cannot handle alone.
zkSync 2.0 will introduce a new overall architecture that provides a combination of zkRollup and zkPorter accounts (users can freely choose and can be fully interoperable):
zkRollup: Inherit the ultra-safe attributes of the main network at approximately 1/100 of the L1 cost.
zkPorter: TX cost is negligible (fixed at about $0.01), but it is protected by cryptography and cryptoeconomics, and has better security than optimistic Rollup.
zkSync also announced the timeline of zkSync 2.0.
zkSync 2.0: Timeline public testnet: May 2021
Documentation: Will be publicly available with testnet.
Mainnet: The target is August 2021.
zkSync 1.x update: NFT and Swap will be released on the mainnet in the spring of 2021. In addition, zkSync 1.x will continue to be updated.
For payment functions, zkSync said that zkSync 1.x is the best among all existing Rollups in terms of transaction costs and user experience. In the 9th round of Gitcoin donations, 82% of donations were made through zkSync. More and more wallets announced support for zkSync, including Argent and imToken.
In April, it will be possible to directly trade homogenous tokens on zkSync L2 (via atomic swap/limit order), and are negotiating cooperation with market makers. But it will not directly implement the AMM function in zkSync 1.x, because it is easy to implement in v2.0, and does not want to compete with projects seeking to adopt zkSync. Anyone can provide transactions through atomic swaps, which will greatly expand the functionality of existing zkSync 1.x users.
Another interesting update is that zkSync 1.x will soon support NFT's native casting, transmission and atomic swap, and has the complete security guarantee of zkRollup. The NFT function should be launched on the mainnet in May.