ConsenSys has announced the upcoming release of its zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM) rollup to a public testnet on March 28, allowing for stress testing of the layer-2 scaling technology. ConsenSys’ research and development team has been working on its zkEVM rollup over the past four years. The zkEVM is touted to offer fast finality, high throughput and security of settlements on the Ethereum blockchain. A private beta launched in Q4 of 2022 gave early access to limited users, which processed over 350,000 transactions and onboarded various decentralized applications (DApps). The testnet allowed Solidity developers to build, test and launch …

Matter Labs, the firm managing Polygon (MATIC), announced that the beta version of its zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM) would launch on March 27, 2023. It’s possible that Polygon will enjoy a first-mover advantage in this space by launching a public mainnet before zkSync and Scroll. Zk-based roll-up technology is accepted as the gold standard for scaling. The existing optimistic-based roll-ups like Arbitrum and Optimism have EVM capability but are less secure because they are “fraud-proof.” Malicious transactions on an optimistic roll-up can stay valid for up to seven days or more before being reversed. Thus, giving an advantage to …

The long-awaited scaling upgrade from Ethereum layer-2 solution provider Polygon (MATIC) has been announced, with the Beta launch of its zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM) mainnet slated for Mar. 27. In a Feb. 14 blog post, Polygon said after three and a half months of "battle testing," the system will be ready for the mainnet next month. Roses are red Violets are blue Poems are hard Mainnet Beta is here ON MARCH 27, Polygon #zkEVM launches the future of Ethereum scaling https://t.co/OqSOYTn8Uv pic.twitter.com/kpXavea3ff — Polygon (@0xPolygon) February 14, 2023 It's been touted as “seamless scaling for Ethereum," and was launched …

Ethereum layer 2 scaling solution StarkWare announced plans to open source its proprietary Starknet Prover under the Apache 2.0 license, which has processed 327 million transactions and minted 95 million nonfungible tokens (NFTs) to date. The prover is the crucial engine Starkware uses to roll up hundreds of thousands of transactions and compress them into a tiny cryptographic proof written on the Ethereum blockchain. “We think of the Prover as the magic wand of Stark technology. It wondrously generates the proofs that allow unimaginable scaling,” said Eli Ben-Sasson, president and co-founder of Starkware. Starkware has faced criticism from the crypto …

Ethereum scaling solution, Polygon, has witnessed a lot of adoption through partnerships with major brands like Starbucks and Addidas, which has increased the network's popularity among cryptocurrency users. The former vice president of growth, Arjun Kalsy, breaks down how Polygon has attracted partnerships with major brands and how the project is driving mass crypto adoption. Arjun Kalsy, before leaving Polygon late last year, led a team tasked with onboarding companies to promote the adoption of the Polygon network. According to Kalsy, talking to brands looking to pivot from Web2 to Web3 or adding elements of the decentralized world to their …

Ethereum layer-2 scaling protocol Polygon (MATIC) is carrying out performance testing of zero-knowledge rollup (zk rollups) technology ahead of full integration with its mainnet. The development of the technology, called Polygon zkEVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine), has been ongoing for over three years by the Polygon Hermez team. The team has already confirmed that zero-knowledge proofs are possible on Ethereum, by generating over 12,000 zk-proofs in a primary version of the zkEVM testnet. David Schwartz, project lead of Polygon zkEVM and PolygonID, unpacked the development of the functionality in correspondence with Cointelegraph. Layer-2 platforms have continued to evolve and improve functionality …

Very few projects have come close to matching the security and decentralization of the Ethereum network. However, the inherent overhead of maintaining these two critical features has left Ethereum burdened by low throughput and prohibitively high costs. As a result, alternative layer-1 blockchains (L1s) — which normally sacrifice security and decentralization to provide scale — have emerged to nip away at Ethereum’s market share. However, with Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-equivalent scaling solutions bringing high throughput and low transaction fees to Ethereum itself, the question is: Do we really need these alternative L1 networks? Despite a rocky year for the industry, …

Ethereum layer-2 scaling platform StarkWare has officially launched the StarkNet Foundation with the introduction of a diverse board that aims to safeguard Ethereum's decentralization and censorship resistance. Seven individuals, including key members from the Ethereum ecosystem and wider cryptocurrency space, will head up the non-profit entity. An announcement shared with Cointelegraph outlined the role of the StarkNet Foundation in ensuring the maintenance and security of StarkNet’s network as well as its development and expansion. Cointelegraph reached out to Eric Wall to unpack his appointment to the Foundation's board. Wall is a blockchain researcher and whistleblower who has exposed systemic flaws …