By George Ward
After a prolonged period of anticipation, Polygon, a layer-2 Ethereum scaling platform, has announced a date for its scaling upgrade. According to the company’s February 14th blog post, the mainnet beta launch of its zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM) is scheduled to take place on March 27th.
Polygon Ready For zkEVM Mainnet Launch
In the blog post, Polygon said that following a rigorous “battle testing” that took place for over three months, the system is primed for the mainnet launch in March. According to Polygon, this solution, released initially as a testnet in December 2022, will provide seamless scaling for the Ethereum blockchain.
In the last three years, the scaling technology, zk-rollup, has been in progress. The team behind Polygon’s zkEVM system has achieved multiple milestones throughout this duration.
Some of these accomplishments include the successful deployment of over 5,000 smart contracts, the creation of about 75,000 zk-proofs, and the establishment of over 84,000 wallets. Additionally, two public third-party audits have been conducted.
The team highlighted that security is a top priority. Also, they believe it is the primary reason Polygon zkEVM underwent a comprehensive and rigorous series of audits and tests.
Meanwhile, the technology relies on zero-knowledge proofs. These cryptographic validations allow platforms to authenticate large quantities of transaction data before aggregating and verifying them on the Ethereum network.
However, Polygon is one of many companies developing a zkEVM solution. Another provider of scaling solutions (zkSync) is also creating a comparable EVM technology through its zkPorter.
This technology transfers crucial transactional data off-chain. Additionally, Scroll, a provider of scaling solutions, is collaborating with the Ethereum Foundation’s Privacy and Scaling Explorations group to develop a solution for zkEVM.
Furthermore, the Ethereum Foundation is financing an initiative known as Applied ZKP. Thus, the initiative is aimed at developing an EVM-compatible zk-rollup.
Benefits Of The Scaling Solution
The Polygon team clarified the importance of the technology, emphasizing that achieving genuine EVM-equivalence would allow Ethereum to be scaled “without relying on incomplete solutions.”
“The objective of Polygon zkEVM is to ensure that the current Ethereum ecosystem comprising tooling, code, and infrastructure remains intact. This is the most effective approach to scaling Ethereum,” the team added.
According to the team, the scaling technology facilitates scaling and leads to considerable transaction cost savings. They noted that the proof cost for hundreds of transactions is about $0.06, while for a simple transfer, the cost is at most $0.001.
In November 2021, Matter Labs, the company responsible for Polygon, secured $50 million from a Series B round spearheaded by Andreessen Horowitz. The company is using the funds to construct EVM-compatible zk-rollups.
Meanwhile, Polygon’s native token, MATIC, has exhibited a positive response to the announcement, experiencing a gain of 3.4% over the last 12 hours and trading at $1.27 at the time of writing, according to CoinGecko’s data.