What is zkSync L3? zkSync L3 is a product next to zkSync Lite and zkSync Era towards the ultimate vision of Layer 3. So what is interesting about zkSync L3? Everyone, let’s find out what zkSync L3 is in the article below.
To better understand zkSync L3, people can refer to some of the articles below:
- What is Layer 3? Overview of Layer 3 Solutions
- What is Arbitrum Orbit? Overview of Arbitrum’s Layer 3 Vision
- What is Superchain? Overview of Optimism’s OP Stack, OP-Chain & Superchain
What is zkSync L3?
Layer 2 market context
Layer 2 was born with the purpose of improving scalability including transaction speed and transaction fees on Layer 1, which here is Ethereum. Up to now, Optimistic Rollups such as Arbitrum or Optimism are doing their job very well as the number of transactions has increased 10 times in just 1 short year. Clearly, users are tending to move from Layer 1 to Layer 2.
The TVL of Arbitrum or Optimism is also increasing rapidly and the ecosystem of these two platforms is also expanding. In many respects, Optimistic Rollups are doing well in sharing work and users with Ethereum
However, Layer 2 itself still has some problems such as:
- Transaction fees are cheaper than Ethereum, but fees are still high compared to most users despite many upgrades.
- Protocols specializing in Trading, NFT and Gaming need faster speeds with much cheaper fees than current Layer 2 platforms.
It can be said that more solutions are still needed in parallel with the expectations of EIP 4488 or especially EIP 4844 in increasing transaction speed and reducing transaction fees on Layer 2. And Layer 3 is one of the solutions. that law.
Overview of zkSync L3
If Arbitrum recently introduced its own Layer 3 model Arbitrum Orbit running on Arbitrum Nitro (then Stylus), Optimism announced OP Stack with a Superchain vision, then zkSync also has a Layer 3 for My own name is zkSync L3.
zkSync L3 includes 3 main components:
- Layer 1 is Ethereum, which ensures security and decentralization for the layers built above because transactions, whether they take place at Layer 2 or Layer 3, are agreed upon and stored at Layer 1. .
- Layer 2 called Base Chain inherits security from Layer 1, is compatible with EVM and is scalable from 10x – 100x compared to Layer 1.
- Layer 3 is called Hyperchain
Layer 3 is built on Layer 2. Layer 3 can be independent Blockchains or specialized DApps for different pieces called HyperChain by zkSync. And the HyperChain has a number of characteristics including:
- HyperChains are linked together through a single bridge called HyperBridge.
- HyperChains can choose extensibility capabilities such as zkRollup, zkPorter or Validium depending on the project’s needs for security or scalability. For example, zkRollup focuses on security more than zkPorter or Validium.
- Do HyperChains have the right to choose privacy for users? Choose your native token as transaction fee or not?
Going into more detail, with the Layer 3 solution on zkSync, developers can choose 3 data availability options. Developers are forced to make trade-offs between factors such as transaction fees, performance, and security.
- zkRollup: This option if the developer prioritizes network security is often good for DeFi-oriented ecosystems.
- zkPorter: This option if the developer wants to optimize scalability will often be good for Gaming and NFT-oriented ecosystems.
- Validium: Although the highest performance option is higher than zkPorter with relatively low security.
Developers don’t stop at data availability options to add custom HyperChain fractals including:
- Privacy is customizable.
- Freedom to customize tokenomics, incentives: HyperChains can optionally launch their own native tokens to ensure incentives for Sequencers, Provers or DAs.
- Use HyperBridge as a cross-chain bridge with visibility similar to IBC on Cosmos or XCMP on Polkadot.
It can be seen that zkSync L3 aims at a model that combines the Internet of Blockchain and Modular Blockchain completely. It can be seen that among the Layer 3 models, it can be seen that zkSync’s model is the most ambitious, but will certainly encounter many problems during the development process.
Some Advantages & Disadvantages of zkSync L3
Besides these features, zkSync L3 also has a number of advantages as follows:
- With Layer 2, zkSync expects performance to increase about 10 – 100 times compared to Layer 1, but with Layer 3, the performance is limitless.
- The cost of storing data on Layer 3 will decrease exponentially by choosing data availability solutions.
- zkSync will continuously improve the SDK to make building a Layer 3 10x easier.
- Not only does it support Sodility or Vyper, but zkSync hopes to support more popular programming languages such as Rust, C++, Swift,…
- HyperBridge’s security is 10 times higher than conventional Bridge platforms.
Besides the advantages, zkSync L3 has some disadvantages as follows:
- The actual implementation of the Layer 3 model will be much more complicated, the data will be rolled many times, and that complexity can lead to errors during operation.
- When the speed is high and the fee is close to zero, users will often spam transactions, leading to network congestion and even shutdown like the story of Solana or Polygon.
- Layer 3 is still in theory and when put into practice, it will encounter many different problems.
Development Roadmap
According to Matter Labs, the zkSync construction and development unit, their last article about Layer 3 was in October 2022, when the project is expected to launch the Testnet network in the first quarter of 2023. But until now, at the beginning of the end of Quarter 2/2023, we do not have any information. However, I expect that around the end of 2023 or early 2024 we will have further information about zkSync L3.
Summary
zkSync L3 plays an important role in zkSync’s Endgame vision, but to complete its vision, Matter Labs will need a lot of time.
Hopefully through this article, everyone will understand more about what zkSync L3 is?
