The best of zk is yet to launch

Last week, the discussion surrounding zk-narratives reached an all-time high. CoinGecko, a popular crypto data aggregator, introduced a new category for zk coins.

CoinGecko @coingecko

#CoinGecko New Category: ZK Coins 🫡 We've just added a new category for zero-knowledge coins. Check it out today ⤵️ coingecko.com/en/categories/…

Some of these coins, such as $LRC, $DUSK, $MUTE, and $MINA, experienced significant growth. However, it is not necessarily true that these are the best or the true innovators in the zk space. It is important to consider all factors and developments in the zk ecosystem before determining which projects are at the forefront of this new technological era.

“The buildoors are building”

They’re yet to launch. Most are still in testnet and have no tokens yet. We’ll explore them in this short article.

These are the best:

1. Scroll

A type-2 zkEVM aims to be an EVM-equivalent rollup— making it easy for devs to port code from L1 to its zkRollup.

100y.eth🦇🔊💜 | a41 @100y_eth

[Scroll, toward the native zkEVM] Scroll is a general-purpose zkR on Ethereum, aiming to achieve EVM equivalency. 🧵: Here's a comprehensive deep dive thread into @Scroll_ZKP

2. Polygon zkEVM

Polygon has invested significant resources into teams like Hermez and Zero to develop a type-2 zk-EVM that is EVM equivalent. The goal is to make it easy for developers to build on Polygon zkEVM just as they do on the Ethereum L1.

Asif Khan 💜🍏 @0xkhan_

ZK szn is upon us. With @0xPolygon ZKEVM set to go live, Eth and Polygon ecosystem is set up for the biggest breakthrough in the scaling space, IMO, this is bigger step for Eth than even the merge. Time to dive deep on the architecture. A 🧵 , first in series of ZKEVM threads.

3. Starknet

It's not compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), which frees it from the limitations of EVM capabilities. Instead, it has built and uses its own technology, Cairo. It also has it’s own zero-knowledge (ZK) algorithm— zk-Stark, which it uses over the popular ZK algorithm, zk-SNARK. This provides advantages such as a 0 trusted setup and superior ZK performance.

odin free 🛸 Tel Aviv - StarkWare Sessions @odin_free

Ethereum just took a major leap forward: Exploring ZK-EVM On L3 StarkNet 🚀 Discover the fundamental concepts that even non-tech people can understand in this thread! 🔽🔽🔽

4. Taiko

Taiko is a type-1 zkEVM making it fully ETH-equivalent. It prioritizes evm compatibility and zkR decentralization over proof generation. It’s also part of loopring

Taiko 🥁 @taikoxyz

A new Taiko blog post has dropped 🥁 The Type 1 ZK-EVM: mirror.xyz/labs.taiko.eth… Here's a quick summary of the post 🧵:

mirror.xyzThe Type 1 ZK-EVMTaiko is building a Type 1 (Ethereum-equivalent) ZK-EVM. What benefits come from using a Type 1 ZK-EVM? Lets learn together in this post.

5. Zksync

A type-4 zkEVM. Devs write code in solidity, which is then transpired (convert high level language code to low level lang code) into Yul. The LLVM (low level virtual machine) then compiles Yul into ZK bytecodes, which are executed through a zkVM.

Louround 🥂 @Louround_

An in-depth research article on @zksync Zero Knowledge rollups are one of the major incoming narratives, and #zkSync is among the most awaited. open.substack.com/pub/louround/p… Take a seat and enjoy the read 🧵

open.substack.comzkSyncA full research report on zkSync, one of the most awaited L2 ZK-Rollup blockchain.

Conclusion

This technology once considered challenging and believed to take several years to implement, is now almost at our doorstep, giving us even more reason to be excited and eagerly anticipate its various launches. Zero-knowledge rollups (zkRs) have the potential to scale Ethereum (ETH) like never before.