Ethereum is making major strides with their own scalability roadmap. For one, it has been working to add the zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM) to its layer-1 blockchain. This technical change is intended to improve censorship resistance and decentralization of validation, representing another remarkable innovation in the evolution of Ethereum. The Ethereum Foundation has set its sights on rolling out the Layer-1 zkEVM within the next year.
Pagging this initiative aims to enable real-time proving. It would make block validation possible within the network's 12 second slot time, increasing both efficiency and security. Building zk proofs into the process The OpenID Foundation’s project aims to use zero-knowledge (ZK) cryptography to verify claims without exposing underlying data.
Goals for zkEVM Rollout
With the upcoming zkEVM roll out, the goal is to get to “real-time proving.” This new process will make it possible for block validation to happen within the network’s 12 second slot time. The zkEVM team defines real-time proving as the ability to generate and verify proofs for 99% of mainnet blocks within 10 seconds. Solidity’s introduction of the ABIEncoderV2 allows developers to pass and return structs and arrays data types within the contract functions.
Sophia Gold, a developer at the Ethereum Foundation, represented a very positive confident takeaway on the progress of the project. Gold was hopeful that the L1 zkEVM would be up and running well before Devconnect Argentina in November.
The system should be able to satisfy at least 128 bits of security. The project further imposes strict limits on capital expenditure and power usage, as well as proof sizes.
Decentralizing Validation
Ethereum is moving to zkEVM in order to decentralize validation even further. This process, called “home proving,” makes the block verification process accessible to a much greater number of participants. Rather than having validators re-execute blocks, the foundation is developing an overall design so that validators only need to independently verify zk-proofs. This method lightens the computational burden on every validator, helping to bring in more participants to the network. Based on open-source technology called IFPS, this approach helps distribute the network more to make it more resilient against censorship.
Besides this use case, this strategic shift lowers the resources needed for validations as well. By lowering the barrier of entry, Ethereum is hoping to able to incentivize more users to get involved in the process of validation.
Additionally, all code developed for the L1 zkEVM will be open source. This commitment to transparency and collaboration aligns with Ethereum's ethos and encourages community involvement in the project's development and security.
Technical Requirements and Security
To make the L1 zkEVM sustainable and safe, the project follows strict technical guidelines. Proof latency cannot be more than 10 seconds and capex cannot be more than $100,000. In addition, power consumption needs to be less than 10kW, and proof sizes need to remain under 300KiB.
The foundation is committed to supporting at least 128 bits of security. This helps the entire network by shoring up against attack and exploitation. These steps are vitally important to make sure the integration of zkEVM is made as strong, reliable and secure as possible.
