Another week of DeFi hacks, but ZK-proof development heats up: Finance Redefined

July 28, 2023 Coin Telegraph

The total value locked in DeFi protocols remained below $50 billion after another week of exploits.

Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly dose of essential decentralized finance (DeFi) insights — a newsletter crafted to bring you the most significant developments from the past week.

The past week in DeFi was dominated by exploits and hacks, with three DeFi platforms losing nearly $39 million. Alphapo’s hot wallets were exploited for over $32 million, Era Lend was drained for $3.4 million, and the decentralized finance protocol Conic Finance was exploited for almost $3.5 million.

In better news, the DeFi ecosystem was buzzing with developments in zero-knowledge-proof (ZK-proof) scaling solutions as the layer-2 sector heats up despite the bear market.

The exploits and bearish market condition took their toll on DeFi protocols, with the total value locked in DeFi protocols seeing a significant drop over the past week.

Alphapo hot wallets hacked for over $31 million

Crypto payment platform Alphapo had roughly $31 million drained from its Ether (ETH), TRON (TRX) and Bitcoin (BTC) hot wallets, security experts reported on July 22. Since the amount of Bitcoin stolen is uncertain, the figures may be even higher.

According to on-chain sleuth ZachXBT, the funds have been stolen on the Ethereum network, then swapped for ETH before being bridged to the Avalanche and Bitcoin blockchains. DeDotFi’s security team said a leak of private keys may have caused the hack. Investigations are still in progress.

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Era Lend on zkSync exploited for $3.4 million in reentrancy attack

The lending zkSync lending app, Era Lend, has been exploited for $3.4 million in crypto, according to a July 25 report from blockchain security firm CertiK. The attacker used a “read-only reentrancy attack” to drain the funds, which is an attack that interrupts a multistep process and then causes it to continue after a malicious action has been performed. Specifically, a “read-only” reentrancy does not update the state of a contract.

According to the report, the attacker drained funds in two transactions using the externally owned account 0xf1D076c9Be4533086f967e14EE6aFf204D5ECE7a. The attacker relied on a vulnerability in “the callback and _updateReserves function” to manipulate a contract into reporting old values that had not yet been updated.

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Zero-knowledge tech development heats up amid bear market

ZK-proofs are cryptographic methods allowing one party to prove to another party that something is true without revealing any sensitive underlying private information. The technology has been a hot topic of discussion among crypto veterans in recent times. On July 19, at the zkDay event — part of the Ethereum Community Conference in Paris — over 2,000 attendees arrived at a small venue by Rue l’Aubrac to catch a glimpse of the latest ZK projects on display. P0x Labs, the developer behind ZK protocol Manta Network, even announced a $25 million raise during the event.

Currently, the technology is playing a critical role in powering layer-2 scaling solutions. By computing a simple cryptographic proof on layer 2, transactions can be finalized nearly instantly, and the record is sent back to the underlying blockchain as a succinct proof. At the same time, ZK-proofs can enable private transactions that do not relay sensitive information to observers.

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Optimism transaction volumes surpass Abitrum’s for the first time in six months

The Optimism network has surpassed Arbitrum in transaction volume for the first time in six months, according to July 27 data from blockchain analytics platform Artemis. Both networks are Ethereum layer 2s that use optimistic rollup technology, which compresses and batches transactions before submitting them to Ethereum, potentially lowering transaction fees.

Volume on Optimism fell behind Arbitrum in January, as season one of its “quest” feature ended. However, it recovered the top spot on July 25 as Worldcoin launched.

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DeFi market overview

DeFi’s total market value saw a bullish surge after three bearish weeks. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that DeFi’s top 100 tokens by market capitalization had a bullish week, with most tokens trading in the green. The total value locked in DeFi protocols remained below $50 billion.

Thanks for reading our summary of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Join us next Friday for more stories, insights and education regarding this dynamically advancing space.

DeFi liquidity protocol adds Consensys-developed zkEVM rollup Linea

July 20, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

The co-founder of the liquidity protocol said the zk roll-up-based scalable solution has the potential to solve the scalability dilemma put forward by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.

Amid the growing popularity of zero-knowledge (ZK) proof based layer-2 scalable solution, decentralized finance liquidity protocol Symbiosis has added support for Linea, a zkEVM-based Consensys-developed scalable solution for cross-chain swaps.

Symbiosis said in a statement that Linea is a developer-ready zkEVM roll-up type, which means it is Ethereum-compatible and thus lets developers reuse a lot of existing infrastructure for creating multi-asset-based solutions. Linea comprises 100+ protocols, developer tools, and decentralized applications (Dapps), making it a useful scalable tool for developers in the Ethereum ecosystem.

Symbiosis Finance broke into the mainstream with its stablecoin liquidity solution in March 2022. Since then the cross-chain liquidity provider has integrated several other layer-2 scalable solutions.

Earlier in April, the protocol integrated zkSync, another zk rollup developed by Matter Labs. The integration helped the protocol to provide one-click swaps from Ethereum, Polygon, Avalanche, BNB Chain, Telos and other blockchains to zkSync and back. Apart from zkSync, the cross–chain liquidity protocol has also added other popular L2 solutions, including Polygon’s zkEVM, Optimism, and Arbitrum since April.

Cointelegraph contacted Symbiosis co-founder Nick Avramov to get insight into the protocol’s experience with L2 solutions, what made them choose Linea and how the solution stands in comparison to other L2s. Avramov told Cointelegraph that Linea perfectly aligns with the protocol’s strategy to support the most popular L2s and the decision to integrate it was based on the community feedback and requests from partners such as OpenOcean, OKX DEX and more, that are using Symbiosis SDK/API.

Talking about the rise of ZK rollups as a prominent L2 force, Avramov said:

“zk roll-ups have better user onboarding capabilities as they are targeting new domains like Gamefi, Social etc. to engage more people without security sacrifice as most of these new domains rely on Ethereum + cost less."

Zk solutions are a natural evolution of rollups, he said, adding "I believe at some point Optimistic rollups will cease to exist."

Avramov noted that zk rollups are the true L2 solutions and have the potential to resolve the cross-chain/multi-chain dilemma, an issue that was raised by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin in January 2022.

Symbiosis said the integration of zk rollups has already helped it scale and increase its transaction throughput by 300% month on month with cross-chain trading volume soaring past $500 million. The liquidity provider believes with the integration of Linea, cross-chain swaps can surpass the billion dollars in volume in the coming couple of months.

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Magazine: Crypto audits and bug bounties are broken: Here’s how to fix them

ZkSync launches new STARK-based proof system with a focus on mass usability

July 17, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

The latest proof system promises better throughput than the current 100 TPS rate and reduces costs in the long term.

Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution zkSync Era has launched a new Scalable Transparent Argument of Knowledge (STARK)-based proof system called Boojum that promises to run on consumer-grade general processing units (GPUs).

ZkSync Era is one of a handful of Ethereum scaling protocols using zero-knowledge rollups (ZK-rollups) to increase capacity and speed while reducing fees. ZK-rollups mostly use two prominent proof systems: zk-STARKs and Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge (zk-SNARKs).

The new Boojum proof system is based on a Rust-based cryptographic library from zkSync that implements an upgraded version of arithmetic circuits for zkSync Era and its ZK developer stack. Most importantly, it allows Boojum provers to be run on everyday personal computers instead of powerful hardware and servers.

The upgrade can run on computers with only 16 gigabytes (GB) of GPU random-access memory (RAM), ensuring regular users can participate in network activity. For context, zkSync currently runs on a cluster of 100 GPUs, each with 80 GB of RAM.

Before the launch of Boojum, zkSync was mainly dependent on zk-SNARKs, which were capable but comparatively less transparent than zk-STARK-based systems. The earlier system processed about 100 transactions per second, while Boojum promises to offer superior processing capabilities.

In the final stage of the implementation, the new proof will wrap the STARK proofs with a non-transparent pairing-based SNARK. It will essentially be a slightly upgraded version of the current SNARK-based proof system. This proof requires less storage and is cheaper to verify, which drives down the cost of the proof system, and, therefore, the transactions themselves.

Boojum is currently live on the zkSync Era mainnet for testing, generating and verifying “shadow proofs.“ Developers are currently testing shadow proofs with real production data before complete migration and larger use. The new system will be upgraded without any regenesis.

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Magazine: Here’s how Ethereum’s ZK-rollups can become interoperable

Vitalik Buterin wants Bitcoin to experiment with layer2 solutions just like Ethereum

July 10, 2023 Coin Telegraph

bitcoin ordinals

Buterin also lauded the recent rise of Ordinals and believes it has brought the builder culture back to the Bitcoin ecosystem.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin believes the Bitcoin network needs scalable solutions like the zero-knowledge (ZK) rollups to become more than another payment network. Buterin’s comments came during a Twitter space hosted by Bitcoin developer Udi Wertheimer with discussions revolving around Ethereum’s scaling experiments.

A ZK-rollup chain is an off-chain protocol that operates on top of the Ethereum blockchain and is managed by on-chain Ethereum smart contracts. It offers a more scalable and faster way to verify transactions without sharing critical user information.

The Ethereum co-founder shed light on how Ethereum has managed to incorporate various scaling solutions over the years and the recent experiment with ZK rollups and Plasma has given better throughput. Buterin cited the example of Optimism and Arbitrum as two successful examples of “rollups” that could be looked as case studies for Bitcoin.

“I think if we want Bitcoin to be more than payments, it needs more scaling solutions,” Buterin added,

Scalability has been a long-drawn point of discussion for Bitcoin and Ethereum over the years. While the Ethereum network has shifted from a proof-of-work to a proof-of-stake network, it is also experimenting with various layer-2 solutions like ZK roll-ups and Plasma.

On the other hand, Bitcoin’s layer-2 solution lightning network has been crucial to its scalability aspirations and lately, Bitcoin ordinals have also joined in on the scalability bandwagon and helped the Bitcoin network become more than just another payment layer. Buterin also lauded the rise of Ordinals and said that he thinks Ordinals have brought back the builder culture into the Bitcoin ecosystem.

Bitcoin Ordinals are the latest layer-2 solution enabling decentralized storage of digital art on the Bitcoin blockchain. Its popularity soared fast and by the end of June, Bitcoin Ordinals inscriptions led to more than $210 million in trading volume.

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Magazine: ‘Moral responsibility’ — Can blockchain really improve trust in AI?

How the spot Bitcoin ETF filings affected the crypto industry in June: Report

July 7, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

The competition among zk-Rollup-based scaling solutions is tightening while the security tokens market continues steadily.

The news surrounding BlackRock’s application for a spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund (EFT) sent the asset’s price from its local lows in mid-June to a strong monthly close of +12%. To most observers, this was a sign that institutional investment into the cryptosphere is once again on the horizon. A future approval of a spot ETF combined with rate cuts from the United States Federal Reserve could provide the ideal catalysts for the next bull run.

For those keen to gain a deeper understanding of the crypto space’s various sectors and their fundamental trends, Cointelegraph Research publishes its monthly “Investor Insights Report,” which dives into venture capital, derivatives, decentralized finance (DeFi), regulation and much more. This month, Cointelegraph Research examined how various sectors reacted to the bullish news surrounding BlackRock’s ETF filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The report is available for free on the Cointelegraph Research Terminal.

While crypto-related stocks, especially those of mining ventures, immediately benefitted from the news, other sectors traditionally tied closer to altcoin activity, such as DeFi, continued in bear-market mode unperturbed.

Zk-Rollups race heating up ahead of next bull run

Many suspect that novel layer-2 scaling solutions for Ethereum will be among the big gainers in the next bull run. However, the competition in the space is tight. Zero-knowledge (ZK) rollup technology, which allows a shortened summary of transaction batches and smart contract executions to be submitted to the chain, will arguably be the biggest area of innovation in this crypto market cycle.

ZkSync Era’s ZK Stack, Polygon zkEVM and StarkWare’s Starknet have all been in the news for their recent or newly proposed innovations. But what does the data say about the relative success of these projects?

In June, Polygon zkEVM outperformed zkSync and Starknet in terms of growth in total value locked (TVL), gaining an impressive 71% month-over-month. However, it still lags an order of magnitude behind the dominant zero-knowledge protocol, zkSync, which currently has a TVL of $120 million.

The recent growth of zkEVM can be attributed to the slew of DeFi protocols it has attracted — such as QuickSwap, Balancer and SushiSwap — with many more in the pipeline. These and other recent developments are discussed every month in the DeFi section of the Cointelegraph Research Monthly Trends Report.

Security tokens market chugs along unperturbed

Security tokens are a remarkable sector of the industry in that they seem to have continued their modest but steady growth throughout the bear market, apparently unphased by the ETF filings that rocked the rest of the market.

During the first half of the year, the total market capitalization of security tokens rose from $14.93 billion to $16.76 billion, as seen in the figure below. The 1.65% growth seen in June was connected to several notable deals and security token offerings (STOs).

Though the development of tokenized securities is controversial in the crypto community, banks such as Citigroup and Bank of America have predicted that the tokenization of real-world assets may drive trillions of dollars to blockchains in the future. While most securities offerings currently involve real estate, other types are quickly gaining pace. With a section on STOs, Cointelegraph Research’s monthly Investor Insights Report covers this lesser-known part of the crypto industry — one that may ultimately grow into a multitrillion-dollar sector.

The Cointelegraph Research team

Cointelegraph’s Research department comprises some of the best talents in the blockchain industry. Bringing together academic rigor and filtered through practical, hard-won experience, the researchers on the team are committed to bringing the most accurate, insightful content available on the market.

Demelza Hays, Ph.D., is the director of research at Cointelegraph. Hays has compiled a team of subject matter experts from finance, economics and technology to bring the premier source for industry reports and insightful analysis to the market. The team utilizes APIs from various sources to provide accurate, useful information and analyses.

With decades of combined experience in traditional finance, business, engineering, technology and research, the Cointelegraph Research team is perfectly positioned to put its combined talents to proper use with the latest Investor Insights Report.

The opinions expressed in this article are for general informational purposes only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual or on any specific security or investment product.

Zero Barriers podcast series: Crypto adoption fueled by ZK-rollups

July 4, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

The podcast series is produced in collaboration with StarkWare and explores the future of ZK-rollups as an Ethereum layer-2 solution.

Cointelegraph is launching Zero Barriers, a special six-part podcast series in collaboration with StarkWare. The series, which features as part of the Decentralize with Cointelegraph podcast, will explore the evolving world of zero-knowledge rollups (ZK-rollups) and the next steps for the adoption of blockchain technology.

Throughout the series, three different hosts from the Cointelegraph team will be joined by different guests from the StarkWare ecosystem. Zero-knowledge protocols or rollups have become a prominent layer-2 scaling feature in the crypto ecosystem, especially for the Ethereum blockchain.

In the first episode, titled: “How blockchain is taking on the world,” StarkWare CEO and co-founder Uri Kolodny sits down with its chief architect Eli Ben-Sasson to explore the future of Ethereum and why they believe in the success of blockchain technology. The episode is co-hosted with Nathan Jeffay of StarkWare.

ZK technology allows one party to prove the existence of information to another party without revealing the data itself. Multiple scaling solution providers have developed their own ZK-rollup protocols, with StarkWare launching Starknet in November 2021.

Starknet is a decentralized validity rollup or ZK-rollup, which operates as an Ethereum layer 2, enabling any app to scale on the network. Recently, Starknet moved one step closer to becoming fully Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible, pending an August testnet launch of Kakarot, a new zero-knowledge EVM.

ZK-rollups increase throughput on the Ethereum mainnet by moving computation and state storage off-chain. The technology can process thousands of transactions per second (TPS), greatly improving the roughly 30 TPS handled by the Ethereum mainnet. And it can achieve this without sharing sensitive transaction data, making it a prominent privacy-focused scaling solution.

ZK has emerged as an effective scaling technology, and this podcast series aims to offer exclusive insights into the ZK ecosystem from those building the technology. Tune in and listen to the Zero Barriers series on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or your podcast platform of choice.

Cointelegraph does not endorse the content of this article nor any product mentioned herein. Readers should do their own research before taking any action related to any product or company mentioned and carry full responsibility for their decisions.

ZkDay comes to Paris on July 19: A marquee ZK conference amid EthCC

June 30, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

The ZK-focused community conference zkDay Paris kicks off on July 19 during EthCC after a successful event in Denver.

Zero-knowledge (ZK) projects continue to spread worldwide, and a new go-to ZK event is coming to Paris, hosted by Manta Network, a ZK layer-1 blockchain; investment firm Polychain Capital and Cointelegraph. The ZK community conference — zkDay Paris — kicks off during EthCC Paris on July 19, from 11:00 am to 8:00 pm Central European Time, on the back of a successful event at zkDay Denver.

ZkDay Paris will include booths, networking, keynotes, venture capital and industry panel discussions with the best and brightest in the crypto industry and the ZK niche. Speakers are invited to apply to join the event on the zkDay website. Additionally, the event will feature an intimate Tech Room, allowing visitors to attend at least 10 ZK workshops.

Register to attend zkDay Paris on July 19 for free.

The upcoming ZK event also boasts a pitch contest with a five-figure prize pool. Early-stage startups are eligible and can now apply through the form, also available on the official zkDay website. The organizers expect to feature at least 10 curated early-stage ZK projects on zkPitch Day.

The zkPitch Day schedule will be shared ahead of the event, and according to the statement, the organizers will look for a variety of teams to join: “Carefully selected ZK projects that demonstrate the highest quality are eligible to participate, from those just starting fundraising to those who have recently completed their seed round.”

The five-figure prize pool for ZK projects at zkDay Paris was contributed to by several sponsors, including platinum sponsors like Foresight Ventures, a Web3-focused investment firm, and Polyhedra Network, a company providing infrastructure for Web3 interoperability.

ZkDay Paris expects to gather at least 25 community partners and speakers from Foresight Ventures, Polyhedra Network, Figment Capital, Hyper Oracle, Landa Class and Kontos, and from companies like Aztec and Worldcoin, among others.

ZkDay Paris comes on the heels of the success of zkDay Denver — the biggest side event in ETHDenver, with more than 3,000 participants. The conference showcased ZK projects at various stages, from those embarking on their fundraising journey to those that recently completed their seed round.

Follow the official conference website and Twitter account for all the latest updates and announcements.

Sponsored: Cointelegraph does not endorse the content of this article nor any product mentioned herein. Readers should do their own research before taking any action related to any product or company mentioned and carry full responsibility for their decisions.

Etherscan launches AI-powered Code Reader: Finance Redefined

June 23, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Changpeng Zhao

The top 100 DeFi tokens broke out of a three-week-long bearish momentum amid a marketwide surge led by Bitcoin.

Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly dose of essential decentralized finance (DeFi) insights — a newsletter crafted to bring you the most significant developments from the past week.

The past week in DeFi was filled with artificial intelligence (AI)-centered developments on Etherscan, Polygon’s latest security update and on-chain sleuth ZachXBT’s ongoing lawsuit supported by multiple crypto personalities.

Etherscan launched an AI-powered code reader to retrieve and interpret the source code of specific contracts, while the Polygon co-founder proposed a zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM) upgrade to improve the protocol’s security.

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao rallied behind ZachXBT and donated to his lawsuit fund, which has now grown to over $1 million. The community-funded effort is to help the blockchain investigator fight a defamation case brought against him by Jeffrey Huang, better known on Twitter as MachiBigBrother.

The top 100 DeFi tokens broke out of a three-week-long bearish phase aided by a significant Bitcoin (BTC) price surge over the past week, with most DeFi tokens trading in green, barring a few.

Etherscan launches AI-powered Code Reader

On June 19, Ethereum block explorer and analytics platform Etherscan launched a new tool dubbed “Code Reader” that utilizes artificial intelligence (AI) to retrieve and interpret the source code of a specific contract address. After a user inputs a prompt, Code Reader generates a response via OpenAI’s large language model, providing insight into the contract’s source code files.

Code Reader’s use cases include gaining deeper insight into contracts’ code via AI-generated explanations, obtaining comprehensive lists of smart contract functions related to Ethereum data, and understanding how the underlying contract interacts with decentralized applications. “Once the contract files are retrieved, you can choose a specific source code file to read through. Additionally, you may modify the source code directly inside the UI before sharing it with the AI.”

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CZ, Powell and more rally to fund legal fees for on-chain sleuth ZachXBT, surpassing $1 million

Blockchain investigator ZachXBT has received over $1 million in donations from the crypto community in just over 24 hours to pay for his legal fees in a defamation lawsuit.

ZachXBT, known for his investigative work in the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry, has become embroiled in a legal dispute with Jeffrey Huang, better known on Twitter as MachiBigBrother. On June 16, Huang tweeted that he had filed a defamation lawsuit against ZachXBT, accusing him of damaging his reputation through false allegations.

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Polygon co-founder proposes zkEVM ‘validium’ upgrade to improve security

Polygon co-founder Mihailo Bjelic has proposed upgrading the Polygon proof-of-stake network to a “zkEVM validium” version, according to a June 20 forum post. If the upgrade is implemented, the new version will rely on zero-knowledge proofs to increase security.

Polygon is an Ethereum scaling solution with over $900 million in total value locked in its contracts and over two million daily transactions. It was first launched in 2019. In March, the Polygon team found a second network, Polygon zkEVM, that uses zero-knowledge rollups to scale Ethereum.

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Stablecoin protocol Reserve invests $20 million in Convex, Curve and Stake DAO

Stablecoin protocol Reserve is investing $20 million into the governance tokens of yield farming apps Curve, Convex and Stake DAO, according to a June 20 announcement. The investment aims to increase the liquidity of the Reserve’s stablecoins, called RTokens. It will also increase Reserve’s voting power within these apps’ governance systems.

Reserve is a stablecoin protocol that allows users to create their coins backed by any asset they wish. Electronic USD (eUSD), High-Yield USD (hyUSD), Reserve (RSV), Reserve Dollar (RSD) and ETH+ are a few examples of stablecoins that have been created through Reserve.

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DeFi market overview

DeFi’s total market value saw a bullish surge after three weeks. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that DeFi’s top 100 tokens by market capitalization had a bullish week, with most tokens trading in the green. The total value locked in DeFi protocols remained below the $50 billion mark despite a surge of over $5 billion this past week.

Thanks for reading our summary of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Join us next Friday for more stories, insights and education regarding this dynamically advancing space.

Starknet moves closer to EVM compatibility with upcoming ‘Kakarot’ testnet

June 22, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

With fresh funding under its belt, a new zkEVM is set to go to testnet in August, allowing developers to write in any EVM-compatible language on Starknet.

Starknet, a zero knowledge layer-2 scaling solution for Ethereum is one step closer to becoming fully Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible pending an August testnet launch of Kakarot, a new zkEVM.

On June 3, the Kakarot team announced it had received new backing from Ethereum cofounder Vitalik Buterin, Ledger co-founder Nicholas Bacca and Starkware.

We have powered up and entered Super Saiyan mode⚡. Kakarot Labs has officially been incorporated and closed a pre-seed round with top-tier investors.

Let’s unpack our vision, current standing, and the exciting future ahead. pic.twitter.com/VI8QRdPLfw
— Kakarot zkEVM (@KakarotZkEvm) June 2, 2023

In an interview with Cointelegraph, Kakarot CEO and Co-Founder Elias Tazartes explained that while Starknet stands as a leading Zero Knowledge roll-up in the Ethereum ecosystem, it's not EVM compatible, so there’s “kind of a barrier to entry.”

Starknet is used by developers to scale decentralized applications, transactions and computation on Ethereum, but uses its own native language Cairo. According to Starknet, the use of Cairo makes it easier and faster to develop, review and maintain new code.

The downside is that it isn’t EVM compatible, which could dissuade some developers.

“The greatest impact that Kakarot can have is to make Starknet EVM compatible.”

“Kakarot right now is like a Solidity or any language engine. Eventually you will be able to put that engine within Starknet to make it EVM compatible.”

At present, Starknet runs its own custom smart contract Virtual Machine dubbed “Cairo VM” that leverages its native coding language Cairo. This means that Starknet doesn’t have direct EVM compatibility out of the box, something that could prove to be a significant hurdle for overall rollup performance.

“Some teams really need to be able to use Solidity. For example, if someone wrote a DEX or an AMM for the Ethereum ecosystem and now has 60,000 lines of code already audited, ready to go, but it’s only on EVM chains.”

If these developers wanted to start using Starknet they would have to hire a whole new dev team, write in, audit the code again and maintain two code bases, becoming what Tazartes describes as “prohibitively expensive.”

According to Tazartes, the idea for the zkEVM was first floated during a Starkware conference in July 2022. By October, the development team was able to together for a week during a hacker house event in Lisbon, Portugal to get cracking on the new zkEVM.

Two months and 20 days later in December, the coding for the project was complete, arriving at a fully functional execution layer — all of which was achieved without any venture funding.

Notably, Tazartes said that Ethereum cofounder Vitalik Buteirn later invested in Kakarot due to his enthusiasm toward a multiple-zkEVM approach to building out the Ethereum ecosystem.

“For Vitalik, the more zkEVMs the better, because as long as you have a wide diversity of architecture and diversity of approaches…then this is really good for the space as a whole.”

Tazartes shared that the testnet version of Kakarot will be launched for public use in August this year.

Magazine: Tornado Cash 2.0 — The race to build safe and legal coin mixers

Polygon, Immutable zkEVM to tackle ‘huge incumbents exploiting players’

March 20, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Blockchain gaming

Web3 gaming developers will be able to build on a new zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine that aims to increase ownership rights for players and take on the big gaming corporations.

Gaming developers are getting a new platform on which to build Web3 games, with a tie-up between Polygon Labs and Immutable set to launch a new zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM).

The partnership sees the two Ethereum layer-2 firms create an “Immutable zkEVM” — a Polygon (MATIC)-powered zkEVM fully supported on Immutable’s Web3 game development platform.

Scheduled for a March 27 mainnet beta launch, Polygon’s zkEVM enables the validation of mass amounts of transaction data by bundling them up into one transaction that’s then confirmed on the Ethereum network. The same technology will feature on Immutable’s zkEVM solution.

Polygon Labs president, Ryan Wyatt, told Cointelegraph that the technology would allow game developers to focus on building a “great game” rather than needing to divert resources toward building the game on-chain.

“This massively simplifies the choices for developers and helps us focus on what really matters — which is taking on the huge incumbents who are exploiting players on a daily basis.”

In a separate statement, Immutable co-founder and president Robbie Ferguson stated that billions of dollars worth of in-game skins is sold each year with no rights to players.

“We’re changing that so players are in control, and ownership is the expectation,” he said.

How it started vs how it's going.

We won't stop until digital property rights for gamers are the expectation - not a headline. pic.twitter.com/uac4VHODBA
— Robbie Ferguson | Immutable (@0xferg) March 15, 2023

Wyatt told Cointelegraph that the partnership came together despite Immutable and Polygon Labs being in competition, adding that the technology “really quickly aligned us” and it was “good for gamers and game developers.”

A ChainPlay survey of blockchain gamers last August revealed that 81% are prioritizing a positive and fun in-game experience after 89% reported losing money in the crypto winter of 2022.

Wyatt said that currently, devs are too focused on how to “actually build a game on-chain,” which pulls focus away from “making a really great game.”

We surveyed the participants, what factors investors want to see in future GameFi projects. The results are not too surprising. 71% of investors say that “Interesting Gameplay” will keep them hooked to the industry. pic.twitter.com/dhb19kmpCf
— ChainPlay.GG (@Chainplaygg) July 20, 2022

“You shouldn’t really have to worry about these different parts of the infrastructure stack and game development,” he said. “This stuff should come easy. You should be able to plug and play very easily with it.”

The testnet is expected to be released at the end of Q2 and “some” interfaces for building on the zkEVM will be available on March 20. MATIC will be the “staking token,” with Immutable’s IMX token the “core gas currency.”

Ferguson said they chose to build for the Ethereum-based gaming ecosystem because “it would be much better to scale the thing that everyone already wanted to use [...] rather than try and compete directly with Ethereum.”

“The right way to onboard the next billion players is not by competing with Ethereum but by building on it and scaling with it,” he said, adding that crypto could triple its monthly users “overnight” if Web3 gaming is successful with a “breakout” gaming title.

“What that requires is incredibly seamless infrastructure and a platform where users can get real ownership of their items without even knowing it's Web3 under the hood.”

Ferguson added he hopes the success of the platform means that “digital property rights in the game are the norm” so that games are owned by “all players rather than giant corporations.”

zk-rollup