An exploration into ZK-Rollups & how StarkWare is using them.
Before understanding ZK-Rollups, we need to begin with Layer 2s:
Layer 2s refers to secondary chains built on top of the main, existing blockchain. Their main goal is to solve the scalability problem faced by the main blockchain.
Case Studies:
There are several layer 2 scaling solutions for Ethereum, including ZK-Rollups, Validium, Optimistic Rollups, Sidechains and Plasma Chains.
ZK-Rollups, Validium and Optimistic Rollups are the most popular solutions utilised across the current market. Optimistic Rollups hold a market share of 85.4% across the top ten Layer 2s.
ZK-Rollups and Optimistic Rollups are similar in that they both improve scalability by moving the computation of transactions off-chain & submitting highly compressed data to the mainnet. The differences are:
Onto StarkWare, Eli Ben-Sasson, the president, mentioned that the token is expected to go on-chain in October.
StarkWare was co-founded by Mr Ben-Sasson, the co-inventor of ZK-SNARK & ZK-STARK (an improved version of ZK-SNARK). It develops STARK-based solutions for the space. Their two main products are:
ZK-Snarks vs ZK-Starks
Decentralisation:
Security:
Scalability:
Comparable Analytics
Token: $STRK - StarkNet (To Be Released)
TVL: $461m
According to StarkWare’s Medium, the token’s use cases include:
The total supply is 10 billion, with the potential for the protocol to mint more as decided by the community in the future. The details for the community’s allocation (50.1%) are:
Bullish Fundamentals:
Bearish Fundamentals:
Closing Remarks
ZK-Rollups may not be new but are recently gaining increasing traction again as more projects seek to utilise their design. The launch of StarkWare has & still is being anticipated across crypto communities. Time will tell whether the ZK theme can grow & bolster crypto markets into innovation amid this larger bear market.
References
CoinGecko. 2022. Cryptocurrency Prices, Charts, and Crypto Market Cap | CoinGecko. [online] Available at: <https://www.coingecko.com/> [Accessed 29 October 2022].
CoinMarketCap. 2022. Cryptocurrency Prices, Charts And Market Capitalizations | CoinMarketCap. [online] Available at: <https://coinmarketcap.com/> [Accessed 29 October 2022].
DefiLlama. 2022. DefiLlama. [online] Available at: <https://defillama.com/> [Accesased 29 October 2022].
Frankenfield, J. (2021) ZK-SNARK, Investopedia. Investopedia. Available at: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/z/zksnark.asp (Accessed: November 4, 2022).
Homepage (2022) Starkware. Available at: https://starkware.co/ (Accessed: November 4, 2022).
Introduction (no date) Introduction :: StarkEx Documentation. Available at: https://docs.starkware.co/starkex/index.html (Accessed: November 4, 2022).
StarkWare industries - funding, financials, valuation & investors (no date) Crunchbase. Available at: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/starkware-industries-ltd/investor_financials (Accessed: November 4, 2022).
The state of the Layer Two ecosystem (no date) L2BEAT. Available at: https://l2beat.com/scaling/tvl/ (Accessed: November 4, 2022).
What is StarkNet (no date) What Is StarkNet :: StarkNet documentation. Available at: https://docs.starknet.io/documentation/ (Accessed: November 4, 2022).
Wright, L.'A. (2022) Why dYdX is leaving Ethereum and StarkWare for a native chain on cosmos, CryptoSlate. Available at: https://cryptoslate.com/why-dydx-is-leaving-ethereum-and-starkware-for-a-native-chain-on-cosmos/ (Accessed: November 4, 2022).
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