Enhancing Ethereum scalability: Insights from Paul O’Leary on the impact of Polygon’s zkEVM
In an interview with crypto.news, Paul O’Leary, Chief Technology Officer of Polygon Labs, discussed how their zkEVM technology aims to enhance Ethereum’s scalability by reducing transaction costs and increasing throughput. The technology, which was launched as an open-source mainnet beta in March 2023, operates by batching transactions off-chain and posting cryptographic proofs to the Ethereum mainnet. This approach helps alleviate network congestion and reduces costs.
The recent transition to Stage 2 of the Mainnet Beta in January 2024 has focused on responsible growth and on-chain activity for dApps. The Elderberry upgrade, implemented since March 14, 2024, includes optimizations that reduce network errors and improve overall performance.
Speaking about ongoing enhancements, O’Leary mentioned that the team is currently working on upgrading the network client architecture for zkEVM. The next step will involve implementing the Erigon client for CDK chains. This upgrade aims to improve network performance and stability while also making maintenance easier. It is expected to go live in the coming months.
Efforts are also being made to reduce proving times without compromising security or efficiency. Although O’Leary did not provide a specific timeframe, he mentioned that there are plans in development to address this issue.
As for integration with other scaling solutions, such as sharding, O’Leary stated that Polygon plans to adapt zkEVM to Ethereum’s new features. Being a “full-featured rollup,” zkEVM will ensure continuous evolution and enhanced scalability.
In order to make zkEVM more accessible to developers, efforts are being made to simplify the technology. O’Leary emphasized that with zkEVM, Solidity developers can deploy their Ethereum dApps without the need for extensive knowledge in cryptography. This approach aims to reduce complexity and lower entry barriers for new developers, thus expanding the zkEVM ecosystem.
Maintaining a balance between scalability and decentralization is another important focus for zkEVM. O’Leary explained that Ethereum provides a base of true decentralization at the settlement layer, and zkEVM is designed to be fully compatible with this principle while solving the scalability challenge.
Looking ahead, O’Leary envisions significant advancements for zkEVM in the next five years, particularly with the introduction of sharding and other scaling technologies by Ethereum. He also expects a notable decrease in fees, stating that users will soon pay negligible amounts or no fees at all.
With these developments and community collaboration, zkEVM is poised to cultivate a scalable, secure, and decentralized Ethereum ecosystem.
Read more:
Polygon introduces zkEVM bridge for fast transactions.
