Only 2 months after its launch, the total TVL reached 333 million US dollars. Has zkSnyc Era become a fertile ground for DeFi innovation?

Written by: Haotian

Only 2 months after its launch, zkSnycERA has more than 680,000 independent wallet addresses, and the total ecological TVL has reached $338M, ranking fourth in layer2 Rank. Although the gap is not small compared with Arbitrum, the growth rate of its various data metrics indicates that this airdrop battle will definitely be swept into the sky. But what is the current progress of the zkSync ecology? What unknown variables remain in the process of decentralization? Next Thread, you must carefully consider it.

The current data volume cannot highlight the advantages of zk-rollup, and the user experience is not satisfactory. For example, people frequently complain about high gas fees, transaction failures, and unstable slippage. To put it simply, the mechanism of zk circuit transaction proof one by one is naturally costly, and the transaction rate, gas cost, silky experience, etc. must reach a balanced state after the ecological data reaches a certain volume. This is a process from quantitative change to qualitative change, and we need to wait and see.

zk-Rollup may be aiming to be the best after Mass Adpotion, but right now we have to think about how not to fall behind Arbitrum, which is manifested in: 1) The gold-absorbing ability of head projects must be strengthened, such as SyncSwap, ReactorFusion, Onchain Trade, etc. Head DEX, Lending, and Derivative projects, lock-up value, yield rate, etc. have been further improved, just like the pulling effect of the GMX growth engine on Arbitrum;

2. The innovative advantages of the bottom layer of zk technology are yet to be released. Theoretically, compared to Arbitrum, zk-rollup can achieve a transaction volume of millions of TPS, and its decentralization is more extreme. However, at this stage, due to the complexity of zkSync’s PlONK circuit algorithm, the development compatibility problem is prominent, which brings great challenges to ecological expansion. serious challenge. This greatly lags the time for zkSync to release explosive models. At present, the iZUMi Finance DL-AMM innovation mechanism remains to be seen; (Related reading: "iZiSwap & Discrete Liquidity Model: Revealing the Future Trend of AMM")

3. The diversity and innovation of the zkSync ecology is not enough; the potential of an ecology depends on its performance in categories such as Derivative derivatives, Lending lending, and Yield Aggregator smart pools, but zkSync is currently focusing on DEX interaction? Numeric domain name? Meme? Obviously these projects can gather popularity, but the continuous siphon effect is far less efficient than Farming Pool, and observe whether zkHoldstation APY can be stabilized;

Overall, the current development of the zkSync ecosystem is remarkable, but it is still in an early alpha state. Obviously, the market sentiment is expected to be high. Next, I will throw out a few potential unknown variables (risks) that I have observed. In short, Calm Down! To put it simply: Sequencer’s POS privileged dominance in the future; decentralized Validator is still overly controlled by MatterLabs; the underlying dynamic rate is unstable, Plonk contract open source issues, etc.;

I complained about the centralization of op-rollup's Sequencer before, and zkSync's Sequencer is currently a centralized component run by MatterLabs. In the future, it will be decentralized based on the POS mechanism and authorization method (there are privileges, but not extreme enough). However, zkSync's Sequencer cannot change the order, because once the transaction is changed, the zk-SNARK proof will also be invalid, so even if the ultimate decentralization is not achieved, fortunately, it cannot do evil.

The Validator is responsible for generating the SNARK proof of the transaction submitted by the Sequencer off-chain, and adding it to the Rollup chain of the new block after the cross-validation is correct. Although in the final state, Validator (including zkPorter) must be absolutely decentralized, but at the current immature stage of the market, most of its validation nodes are still controlled by the Matter Labs team, and according to the Roadmap, they will be gradually decentralized and autonomous.

what does that mean? Will these Matter Labs highly controlled validator nodes secretly collect user IP addresses? On a technical level, the possibility of "malicious nodes" tracking transactions and collecting user IP addresses cannot be ruled out. Especially before complete decentralization, this block is a black box. If individual verification nodes collect IP and other information in the name of anti-Sybil attack, so as to optimize the airdrop strategy, it seems reasonable to make sense.

Of course, as a leader in zk ecological privacy transactions, I think zkSync will not do such a rebellious thing. But in the face of the raging zkSync frenzy, it is hard not to make people have such inferences and hidden worries. Here we only discuss the technical logic of whether it can be done in theory. As for whether it will happen, as an observer of the zk ecological industry, I tend to remain optimistic. Please judge and respond to the judges who intend to use multiple accounts.

Finally, let me say that the zkSync fee rate issue is extremely confusing to everyone, especially the interaction rate and failure rate of different projects are very different. This is essentially a compatibility issue between the smart contract and the bottom layer of zk. If the code logic of the contract itself is complex, and the data structure and Plonk's circuit algorithm optimization are not in place, there will be instability problems. This is bound to become an obstacle for developers to enter the ecology, and I am afraid it will take time to digest.

In this way, it is not difficult to understand why Matterlabs CEO Gluchowski said in an interview that there is no need to issue coins now, and that decentralization will be implemented in the next year. On the one hand, allow enough time for decentralization issues such as Sequencer and zkPorter Validators, and on the other hand, allow enough time for excellent projects to contact, master, develop and develop innovative zk projects to grow the ecology, and of course, it also gives the majority of users the opportunity to accumulate blessings.