The zkEVM is Here | zkSync's Steve Newcomb

Hey Bankless Nation, welcome to another episode of State of the Nation, where David and I get into something topical, super topical item today. ZK EVMs. They are here. Well, David, they are almost here, and we have brought on someone from the ZK EVM team, Matter Labs, to talk about it. What are we covering today, David?

The ZK EVM is something that has really been exciting a lot of people in the layer two space, the scaling space, because it is generally considered the gold standard of scalability. ZK rollups plus the EVM, we already know that the EVM itself, it was a huge uh player in the 2021 bull market. So many people forked the EVM, spun out their own chains, uh, but that was as an alternative layer one. Uh you add some cryptography magic with zero knowledge onto the ZKM, a ZK EVM, and it unlocks new frontiers, Ryan, if you will, for us to explore uh as we explore out the crypto frontier. So that is why we are super excited today to talk to Steve Newcomb of the ZK Sync, the Matter Labs team, and all about the incoming ZK EVM that is imminent upon arrival.

This is a technology that uh Vitalik in our episode earlier this week that released on Monday, he said he was even surprised at how quickly ZK EVMs are coming to market. And I think this episode will fill you in on some of those details. A quick disclosure before we get in. David and I are angel investors in the Matter Labs, which is the entity behind ZK Sync. We're also advisors to the ZK Sync project. We think that highly of it. Uh and ZK Sync is currently a bankless sponsor. We wanted to get those disclosures up on the front of the show. We take disclosures seriously. So we are mentioning them at the top of every show from now on. There's also a link in the show notes where you can see all of the disclosure details for David and I get a peek into what we own, what projects we're excited about. Also, want to tell the Bankless Nation about.

David, why are we talking about ZK EVMs today? What uh why is this the topic of the week that we decided to delve into?

Yeah, crypto right now is looking for a new narrative. Uh what's next is a really big conversation in crypto right now. It's in fact it's the name of the podcast that we just did with Vitalik Buterin. Post-merge, we're not really sure what to be hopeful for. And so instead of being hopeful, we just look at the macro markets and like cry a little bit. So crypto is crypto is in search for what is next, what is on the horizon, what is something to be excited for. And Ryan, I remember the 2018 to 2020 bear market. As it went on, you could just see the kindling being laid that eventually manifested into the 2021 bull market. And that kindling was using the Ethereum layer one to build out these new things called DeFi apps and later NFTs. And now that's kind of the status that we've had that bull market. But what we haven't had is a bull market in like the layer two space, the scalability space on Ethereum. So first comes the protocols, then comes the apps. And the ZK EVM, like I said at the intro, the ZK EVM is this new surface area for new frontiers. It is the thing that so many devs have been looking forward to and waiting to deploy on. So while it's not the ZK EVM isn't as something as like massive as the merge, it's gonna be hard to compete with the merge, but it is something to answer the question what's next, what to look forward to. And while we're all going through this bear market together, where to look for alpha? Because eventually the retail market is going to come back and they're very likely going to come back on top of a ZK EVM. So if you are here now listening to this, the ZK EVM is a frontier for you to glom onto some alpha for. So at least that's what's going on in my mind while we listen to this.

Yeah, I think the we are pretty close to the ZK EVM as well. So it's not something that is far into the future. This is something that is weeks away potentially. We'll get into the timeline as well. Last thing, David, really quick for us what should listeners be paying attention to in this episode?

Yeah, there's many different components of a ZK EVM. There isn't one standard ZK EVM. So ZK Sync and Matter Labs are coming into the world of the ZK EVM with their flavor. There's also conversations as to how these organizations and entities interoperate and interact with each other. There's going to be conversations around bridging. How is bridging in a ZK EVM world different than an alt layer one world? So that's something to pay attention to. Onboarding is going to be a huge, huge conversation. We've seen some chains onboard in the bull market very, very well, and other b other chains not onboard so well. So how is ZK Sync approaching this? How are they going to capture some of the market share once their EVM goes to goes to mainnet? And also, they're not the only ZK EVM coming. So what does that competition landscape look like? Uh what else? What are you looking forward to, Ryan, in this episode?

I'm going to be looking for the differences between ZK EVMs and optimistic roll-ups. I want to hear more about that. Of course, I want to hear about ZK Sync's plan for a token. Is that a component of the strategy? Where does that fit in? And I also want to hear about this concept that I've heard a lot bandied about, which is layer threes. What are layer threes? This idea of self sovereign chains that are also somehow secured by Ethereum. How does that mesh with Cosmos' app chain model? So these are some of the things I'll be looking for with Steve. Guys, hang with us for just another minute. We're going to be right back with Steve, but before we do, we want to thank the sponsors that made this episode possible.

Alright, guys, we are back. The ZK EVM, this mysterious bit of technology that came actually earlier than scheduled. This is the promised technology to scale Ethereum. We've got Steve Newcomb here, who is the chief product officer at Matter Labs. He's the team behind ZK Sync. That's what we're going to be talking about today. And he is no stranger to startups. He founded four companies already.

He brings a ton of experience to the frontier technologies in the world, including of course Ethereum scalability technologies. And he's also recently joined Matter Labs to accelerate the mass adoption of crypto.

He aligns very much with some of our personal sovereignty goals at Bankless. And uh Steve, it's great to have you on. How are you doing?

I'm doing great. Really excited to be here with you guys.

All right, you guys are getting close to mainnet. And by mainnet, I'm talking about a ZK EVM on mainnet. Can you give us the countdown? Like how many days? Because I I I I've been following you guys on Twitter and there have been some commitments made. When made it and I'm wondering, I remember like a hundred days out, and I just my time schedules got lost somewhere. So like how many days out are we and are you going to hit that date?

We are so yeah, we set a hundred days a while ago. And as soon as we said it was a hundred days to mainnet, I think everybody in the company threw up because we're like so worried about hitting it.

But um

we're 31 days away right now, and I I think we're gonna hit it. One month. We're things are looking, you know, I would say more than a non zero chance that we'll hit it.

More than a non zero chance, but there's also a chance that you won't, then I assume. But like

I think I think we're looking pretty good.

I think we're looking pretty good. All right. The the TTD numbers coming in healthy, I guess. So we're gonna.

Yeah.

We're gonna hit ZK. So, what is actually shipping? Can you give us the high level? This is a thing that I've heard some people call um ZK Sync 2.0. So maybe that's a term that people are familiar with. Um the the other the high level, I think, is this is um

the first ZVM compatible uh ZK rollup on mainnet, I believe. So maybe that's a milestone. But what is the thing that you are actually shipping?

Yeah, I think this is gonna be a big moment for not only uh us, but for Ethereum, the whole community of us that have been after scaling.

Not just the technology of Ethereum, but the mission of Ethereum.

And we are chipping the long awaited promise of the endgame for scaling Ethereum.

And this is a ZK EVM

that is EVM compatible, which I'm sure we're going to get into a lot today.

It supports Solidity.

It is really easy to port from wherever you are to ZK Sync because it's compatible.

Uh, it it will be open source when we get to mainnet. We'll be talking about that.

Um, and it will be supported by I think a token model that expresses the mission of Ethereum and and expands it.

And so, Steve, in the beginning, we were talking about what should listeners listen for, what should they look out for while they listen to this episode. And you just gave uh a list of characteristics or parameters about ZK Sync specific ZK EVM. Can you talk a little bit about those design choices? Uh the the flavor of ZK Z EVM, why you chose them and how they differ from other possible ZK EVMs that might appear on the market in the future?

Yeah, I think that one of the things that we strive every day to do is to

really be a mission more than a company. And our mission is to scale Ethereum. And so

we listened to the Ethereum community and we said, what do you guys want? Um

What is it that makes it so special for us? And it really was those five ingredients that is a

general purpose, EVM compatible, open source,

supported by a token model that we that we all have consensus around being the right way to do things.

And it allows developers to use Solidity. So when you have those five magic components,

it's really going to make it easy for people to adopt us, to port to us.

And our goal is to be the absolute number one choice amongst developers for layer two.

We differ from a couple of the other different attempts.

And, you know, there's Starkware, who has a project going on. There is Polygon. There is

a company called Scroll that has a project that's going on.

And there's a couple of important differences between all of us. And I and I do want to say I think the competition

is healthy.

It's good.

And that when when these projects have successes, we celebrate those successes too. Because again, we're really here just for Ethereum and to scale the Ethereum uh mission and values.

But I think that um so first out was Starkware. They were the first one to come out with a general purpose

ZK roll up.

Um

they were about eight months ahead of where when we're going to come out, might be nine months. Um,

but they only had two of the five components uh with their release. So

They weren't really EVM. They didn't support Solidity. You had to use Cairo, a custom language.

And they

weren't open source completely. It's sort of a, they have a complex but very

overt and then very transparent license that they shared.

And then a little bit of the fourth one is that their token model wasn't exactly well received because they had 50% of the token going to

insiders. And they they elected to charge gas fees in their own token.

Anytime you don't hit these five magic criteria, I think you have a lot of adoption friction and a lot of friction within your community.