Ethereum layer 2 zkEVM ‘Scroll’ confirms mainnet launch

Scroll, a new contender in the zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM) space that works to scale the blockchain, has confirmed the launch of its mainnet.

The team behind Scroll announced the launch in an Oct. 17 post and added that existing applications and developer tool kits on Ethereum can now migrate to the new scaling solution.

“Everything functions right out of the box,” the Scroll team said.

After more than two years of building, we are thrilled to announce the launch of Scroll Mainnet.

As we open the doors to Mainnet, we want to take a moment to reflect on our journey thus far pic.twitter.com/WKfkjyIkB0

— Scroll (@Scroll_ZKP) October 17, 2023

A zkEVM solution such as Scroll’s aims to provide lower transaction costs at a higher throughput for decentralized applications running on Ethereum.

It works by batching thousands of transactions off-chain into one, then submitting a proof consisting of a minimal data summary to Ethereum’s mainnet.

Blockchain data suggests Scroll withheld the news that its mainnet has been live since Oct. 8 — the date at which the first smart contract was deployed on the Scroll mainnet, according to Etherscan data.

Scroll said the mainnet launch came after 15 months of extensive testing and security audits across three separate testnets.

“Our bridge and rollup contracts were audited by OpenZeppelin and Zellic,” Scroll added. Its zkEVM circuits were reviewed by Trail of Bits, Zellic and Kalos.

Across its three testnets, over 450,000 smart contracts were deployed, enabling over 90 million transactions across 9 million blocks. 280,000 ZK-proofs were also generated, the firm said.

pic.twitter.com/BujREyNGqi

— Scroll (@Scroll_ZKP) October 17, 2023

About a month ago, Scroll co-founder Ye Zhang told Cointelegraph Scroll would launch with centralized features but plans to increasingly decentralize over time.

“We will have a centralized sequencer and the central approver button,” Zhang said. He added that a plan is in place to remove that button, however.

“We have a roadmap […] To solve the single point of failure and to incentivize the community to build better proving hardware.”

Zhang said the Scroll team will also pitch several proposals to let the community discuss what’s best for Scroll moving forward.

Related: ConsenSys launches Linea zkEVM to further scale Ethereum

Scroll was founded in 2021 with the goal of being more community-driven. Other zkEVM solutions working to scale Ethereum include Polygon, zkSync, StarkWare and Immutable.

Jordi Baylina, technical lead of Polygon Hermez zkEVM, recently told Cointelegraph that such competition in the zkEVM space is only going to make the Ethereum ecosystem more robust.

“Having different projects adds a lot of experience, and it’s also a way to test different approaches, ways of handling things, or solving things,” he said.

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