Scroll zkEVM Mainnet Launch with Sandy & Toghrul

Hey Bankless Nation, it is the Roll Up Wars. On today's episode, a new player has entered the chat. Scroll just released their new ZK EVM to Mainnet, and we've got the co-founder of Scroll and a senior researcher from Skrull joining us today to tell us what that means. David, what are we talking about?

Now, Scroll is a pretty hotly anticipated layer two. It is a ZK EVM layer two. And so with all of the optimistic roll-ups already deployed and pretty decently along in their maturity, it's time for the ZK EVMs, the ZK rollups to enter the arena. Scroll is a unique kind of ZK EVM. It's got some extra bells and whistles, some unique properties that make Scroll tick. So we're going to ask Sandy and Torgle about the unique properties that make Scroll so interesting. And of course, we'll eventually get to win token at the very end.

Uh speaking of unique properties, you know what has uh unique properties, David?

Tell me.

This podcast right here. And uh also the jacket that we were looking at, okay? This is uh Sukajan jacket.

Sujukin. Sujakin.

Oh, okay. I don't even know. I don't even have one, David. But you do.

I do. I do. I got it right here.

Uh this is available to a bankless listener who to who who fills out a survey, actually.

We have a survey and we need people to fill it out. You get the you might get the jacket if you fill out the survey. But the main thing we're talking about is the survey that we need.

Yeah, that's true. I started with the jacket, but David's starting with the survey. And that's the thing. All you have to do is fill out the survey and you have a chance to win that jacket. David, why are we doing this survey?

Uh because we have a new podcast format that we want to bring to the table, an unreleased podcast uh type of podcast, but we want to make sure that we are actually on target with this. So we're gathering some data about who you are, bankless listener, what kinds of podcasts you listen to, what kinds of bankless podcasts you listen to, or maybe you listen to all of them. Wow. Uh, and just kind of a background about yourself. And so if you want the bankless podcast to tune itself to a little bit more towards your desires, or maybe you just want the jacket, uh, fill out the podcast survey.

Yeah, it's not about the jacket. It's about improving the podcast, everybody. Yeah, do your do your public duty. Thank you, bankless listeners. Fill this out. There's a link in the show notes if you want to go uh check that out. It should take like five minutes of your time. No more uh than that, I'm sure. David, why are we talking about scroll today? Tee up this episode for us a little bit more. So the ZK uh EVM roles are are kind of like uh wars are are kind of off. Um and uh, you know, roll ups in general have been climbing up the leaderboard on L2 beat. So a lot of them are are trying to gain market share. What is special about scroll and uh why are we bringing them on the episode today?

Yeah, so I'm I think I'm really excited to ask Sandy and Torgo about this. Um, I think there's like a spectrum of difficulty of roll-ups. Uh optimistic roll-ups are like pretty easy, as in just like, you know, fork and replace the EVM, but now as a layer two. Then we kind of get into the ZK rollups, which it with like Polygon and ZK sync, which are like roll-ups, but ZK. But with Scroll, we're on entering like a new frontier, which is EVM equivalent ZK rollups, which is a pretty hard thing to achieve. Yet you get a huge amount of tailwinds if you do get that. And so that's going to be, I think, the main focus of some of my questions is what do you get with a ZK EVM? Why do we care about scroll? What about scroll has set itself apart from its competition? Uh so that was that's the th the thing to pay attention to, pay attention to as we go into this episode.

So, guys, before we get into this episode, first we disclose David and I are both angel investors in Scroll. We are big fans of many different layer twos out there. And as a reminder, we are long term investors. We're not journalists. We don't do paid content. There's always a link to all of our disclosures in the show notes, bankless.com slash disclosures. All right, guys, we will be right back with Sandy and Torgle. But before we do, we want to thank the sponsors.

Bankless Nation, I'm so excited to introduce you to Sandy Peng, one of the co-founders of Scroll, the ZK scaling solution that we're talking about today. And also Torgul Marmov Marimov, a senior researcher and roll up sorcerer, also at Scroll. Sandy, Torgil, welcome to the Bankless. How are you guys doing?

Hello, hello.

Hey guys, good to be here.

Okay, so the news today is that

Mainnet, Scroll Mainnet, is live. That's pretty cool. Congratulations. How does it feel? Sandy, how's it feel to have finally had mainnet live?

Yeah, it feels feels amazing, almost surreal. This has been kind of two years in the making, and um the team has really pulled together for this very big milestone. And I think for for for any kind of product team, like the big product launch is really just the beginning. This is the first time we get to really meet our customers and meet the devs and get real feedback. So everything feels much more tangible. And you know, just like anything we do, it's just great when you receive.

um feedback and and and and hopefully that will help us iterate more going forward.

Mm-hmm. And Torgle, you've been at Scroll for as long as I've known you, uh, but you also pay attention to the entire roll up landscape and really just crypto at large. Maybe you could um just do the job of articulating why this is significant. Uh in the in the broad landscape of all layer twos, all types of roll ups. Uh why is this mainnet day unique?

I think I'm gonna come off a bit biased here.

You're allowed for you're allowed to do that.

Yeah, that's permitted.

I'm happy to do that. So uh

so one of the things that we concentrated on since the beginning is maximizing compatibility with Ethereum. And at the time when this was just getting started almost three years ago, this was almost an insane idea. I remember talking to a few people in like 2021 about potentially

building a Zeke EVM that is EVM.

Equivalent or compatible, and they were like, Yeah, those people are just scammers, it's never gonna work.

And yeah, it it basically started as a wild idea that transformed into something that is finally alive on the mainnet today, and it's been a long road, a tiring road. I think we all need

a sleep, a long low sleep tonight after after the launch.

But yeah, but but we're happy that we're finally

uh

on the on the arena playing and learning.

Yeah, yeah, and there we go.

I throw in that phrase yesterday.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But yeah, no, I remember it like yesterday when we first met Togrill. I think the team was just eight to ten people and we got introduced on the internet. And um and I think most people thought we were kind of a joke because it was just so far fetched, but Toggle decided to join us after a 30 minutes call. He was just like YOLO.

Yeah.

We basically

He's been YOLOing ever since.

signed the papers the next day after I had a call.

Well, what was what was so compelling about that, Torgal? Yeah.

Um

I I think for me was the idea that

that the scroll aimed to be as much compatible with Ethereum as possible.

And I always

Thought of rollups as a great extension of Ethereum. And that just made a lot of sense to me. And I always thought of ZK as a more long-term play versus something like optimistic rollups, which were more

of a viable short term solution, but long term, I feel like all of the optimistic rollups are gonna transform into ZK rollups. So it just made

it clicked from like the first time I had a call with Sandy, and yeah.

Torgle, why

why why is uh

EVM equivalents so important. Like you you mentioned this idea of an extension of Ethereum, right? I I know some roll-ups have gone in a completely different direction. They're like, hey, you know, EVM sucks. We're in Swap sucks.

Settle on Ethereum and call it good.

Yeah, but but uh scroll is with the strategy, you guys are doubling, tripling down

on Ethereum equivalents. Why?

So I feel like for me, the argument was always

what's the purpose of

Rebuilding everything from scratch and re-educating people and helping them learn a new language, a new programming paradigm, etc.,