Welcome to Modular Media, a weekly newsletter covering news, updates, educational content, and more within the modular ecosystem.
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The first zkEVM on Ethereum is lifting the gates to let projects deploy.
Last week, zkSync caught everyone by surprise after officially launching the first zkEVM on mainnet.
As you may already know, ZK-rollups are thought to be the holy grail of blockchain scaling. StarkWare was the first team to deploy a general-purpose ZK-rollup, however, it’s built using their own custom, native programming language, Cairo (as opposed to Solidity). zkSync on the other hand, natively supports the EVM (EVM compatible), and Solidity enabled, which makes it easy for developers to port their existing Solidity code to zkSync.
To be specific, February 16th marked the launch of the network’s fair onboarding phase, allowing all registered teams to start deploying on the zkEVM. Mainnet will remain closed for users during this phase, allowing teams to test their projects in a closed environment. This phase is expected to last 4-6 weeks, and assuming everything goes well, the Full Onboarding phase will begin soon after.
Aside from this, zkSync also announced:
their now fully open sourced, allowing anyone to view, modify, and fork the code (although, it’s highly recommended to avoid forking until full onboarding phase)
zkSync2.0 is now zkSync Era
Some of the projects that have already announced their upcoming deployment on zkSync’s zkEVM include: Aave, Uniswap, 1inch, Curve, Chainlink, Ramp. Hop, Hashflow, and Juno.
The zkSync team will be posting their new roadmap and milestones soon, so make sure to follow them on Twitter so you don’t miss that.
Dymension Hub 35-C Testnet is Now Live! 
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This past week, Dymension officially launched their Dymension Hub testnet, 35-C.
As a recap, the Dymension Hub is a Proof of Stake blockchain that acts as the settlement layer for the entire Dymension ecosystem. Builders can then launch their own dedicated RollApps, or execution environments, on top of this settlement hub.
As of today, there is one RollApp deployed on the testnet, RollApp X, which was launched by the Dymension team shortly after the hub’s launch. Anyone interested in playing around with the testnet can go into the community discord and request tokens from their faucet, which can then be bridged into RollApp X for staking. Once the team determines the network is stable enough, they’ll deploy two more RollApps on top of the hub, an EVM RollApp, and a CosmWasm RollApp.
You can learn more about the Dymension testnet here.
Today, we unveil Modular Cloud. Our initial product is Explorer, a block explorer for modular blockchains. The process of understanding and…
Last week, we saw the launch of a new modular project, Modular Cloud. The first product they released is Explorer, a block explorer built specifically for modular blockchains.
As you may already know, a block explorer is a tool that allows users to dive into specific transactions, blocks, addresses, and more. The most popular example is Etherscan. However, what separates Modular Cloud’s Explorer from Etherscan and the rest is that it’s specifically made for modular chains.
A modular blockchain separates the different components that make up a blockchain into multiple layers, rather than doing everything on the same one, as with your typical monolithic chain.
Let’s take Dymension (mentioned above) as an example. As of today, the Dymension ecosystem consists of three different layers: RollApp X (the execution environment), the Dymension Hub (settlement layer), and Celestia (data availability layer). When a user submits a transaction on RollApp X, they’ll be able to see in which rollup block that transaction was included, which block that transaction settled on, as well as which DA block the original transaction was included in.
As of today, the only networks that are integrated into the modular explorer are Celestia, Dymension, and Eclipse, however, they’ll soon be launching an automated integration tool so that any execution, settlement, or data availability solution can easily integrate their network within the modular explorer. For now, if any modular solution wants to integrate their network into Explorer, you cn reach out to the team.
Aside from this, the team will also be releasing “visualization of the transaction flow through all layers of the modular stack and paid cloud services in the future.
You can learn all about this new modular block explorer here.
We’re excited to announce that Caldera has raised $9M in funding across two rounds, lead by Shaun Maguire at Sequoia Capital and Ani Pai at Dragonfly respectively. This funding will help us grow our...
Last week, Caldera announced their $9M raise, in a round that was led by multiple big-name firms, including Sequoia, and Dragonfly.
According to the team, the funds will be used to “rapidly accelerate the development timeline”, as well as to hire more team members in order to strengthen their core product, and to improve the UI.
This funding round came just a week after Caldera announced the launch of Spark, a testnet version of their no-code deployment platform that allows users to launch their own rollup in just one click. You can learn more about Spark here if you’re interested.
As a reminder, Caldera is an EVM-based, rollup as a service provider, allowing any team to spin up their own individual, custom rollup.
Polygon announces the official date for their zkEVM mainnet launch - March 27th
Fuel testnet beta reaches over 850K settled transactions
The Ethereum Foundation recently announced the L2 community grant recipients, and amongst the names included was Stackr, an SDK for building application specific rollups
Clearpool Finance starts their whitelisting phase for Clearpool Prime, their new gateway service for institutions
Starbucks NFTs are already selling for thousands
Here are the current mint stats for Nike’s recently launched .Swoosh campaign
MantisSwap, a Polygon native stableswap protocol, deploys on Polygon’s zkEVM public testnet
Introducing the first Yearn vault using zk-proofs
Here’s a recap of StarkTank, “a startup pitching session that took place at StarkWare Sessions last week
For any StarkNet enthusiasts, some of the big projects within the ecosystem are hosting StarkDenver on March 3rd
For anyone looking to connect with the zkSync team at EthDenver
Tevaera, an on-chain gaming platform built natively on zkSync, just shared details on their 2.0 gaming ecosystem
Arbitrum flips BSC in 24-hour DEX volume, becoming the second L2 to accomplish this feat
Both Kraken, and Coinbase announce their Arbitrum integration, allowing users to start sending and receiving assets through the network
APWine launches on Arbitrum
Aldrin exchange to deploy on Nitro SVM’s testnet
On February 15th, 5M OP tokens were transferred from the Governance Fund to the different protocols across the Optimism ecosystem, as part of their recently launched Delegation Program
Quix, Optimism’s native NFT marketplace, open sources their codebase
Attention Optimism community, check out the network’s new governance portal, where all Token House votes will now take place moving forward
Poolshark protocol introduces Price Pools, “a new way for traders to provide liquidity to the market whilst applying buy-and-hold under the hood”
Eclipse launches a glossary to help new web3 entrants understand basic blockchain & rollup terminology
Take a look at this thread covering Mantle’s journey so far. Mantle is the first project to leverage EigenDA
Check out some of the newest updates the Buttrfly app has added, including push notifications for messages
On February 15th, the Cosmos Hub went through its Rho upgrade, “containing an extensive update to the testing infrastructure and the addition of the Global Fee module”
The Sovereign team just released details about how their SDK works. As a reminder, it’s only been two weeks since we were introduced to Sovereign, who are building an ecosystem of zk-rollups
The Flashbots team just released their transparency report for the months of December & January, going over everything that happened within the ecosystem during the two months
Following Ethereum’s recent ACDE call, it looks like the Shanghai/Capella upgrade is still set for launch on the 28th
Here is the complete recording of Saga’s recent community call & project update
Eclipse gets a new orange look
For any modular enthusiasts looking to work in the space, check out these cool projects currently hiring
The Polygon and zkSync announcements spark a series of back-and-forths between project teams. As usual, the debates implicitly center around which rollup is “the first zkEVM”. This time, the focus is on provers:
Mihailo (Polygon) clarifies their prover will be live and permissionless upon launch
Alex (zkSync) says their prover has been live since October
David (Polygon) says two audits are in progress and will be complete before launch
Alex (zkSync) says audits are complete with further audits on the way
One thing left without clarity is which ZK protocol Polygon will use - Groth16 (used by zkSync) or FFLONK. We don’t need to get into this very esoteric topic, but it matters which one they pick. Groth16 requires a “trusted setup” and FFLONK does not. On the other hand, FFLONK might bring more risk.
Brendan Farmer (Polygon ZK) makes a case against ZK L1s and for ZK L2s. Before Polygon, Brendan worked on a ZK L1 himself, making him a credible person to speak on the topic. His main arguments are:
Recursion makes the cost of verifying ZKPs on Ethereum not a practical problem
Upgrading ZK L1s is really hard
ZK teams from L1s like Mina Protocol / Aleo mostly disagree with his upgradability argument. They offer potential upgradability solutions which Brendan acknowledges.
There doesn’t appear to be a simple answer here - at least not yet. ZK L1 upgradability is possible, but hard. There are solutions, some more practical than others, and all with tradeoffs.
DinoEggs here 👋 This question is posed by yours truly, with the goal of understanding why different rollup teams might post different data types on L1. The different types are:
Transaction data
State diff data
To be clear, this decision is unique to ZK rollups (due to the ZK part). Since they can prove state transition validity without revealing transaction data (inputs), they can get away with only posting compressed data about state changes (outputs).
At first glance the answer seems obvious - post state diffs since it’s cheaper - but my question is whether there are tradeoffs and good reasons to post transaction data. A few key advantages stuck out:
Greater insight into value flows, useful for entities like block explorers
Verification before proofs are posted, unlocking faster finality
Easier forced transaction inclusion for arbitrary transactions
Are there mechanisms to get the best of both worlds? Alex (zkSync) says yes.
@nero_eth illustrates the journey of blocks, from creation to validation
@norswap breaks down the Rollup-as-a-Service landscape
@sunnydece creates an updated diagram of the Rollup-as-a-Service landscape
@0xPolygonZK demonstrates how they’ve exceeded ZK performance expectations of years past
@CelestiaOrg conveys the advantages of scaleability, shared security and sovereignty
@thebellcurvepod releases a podcast episode on MEV
@TheDeFISaint explains zkEVMs in depth
@ThorHartvigsen breaks down the roadmaps of top Ethereum L2s
@stonecoldpat0 explains the goal of rollup systems in simple terms
@alt_layer releases a podcast episode discussing the Layer 2 landscape with @dberenzon
@domothy explains how sequencers can offer pre-confirmations for quicker (soft) finality, likely good enough for low-value transactions
@p_e explains Cairo 1.0, the latest version of StarkWare’s programming language, in depth
@Cryptocito hosts a Twitter Space AMA on cross-chain MEV with @0xbrainjar and @brapse
@stonecoldpat0 writes an article on what it means to decentralize a rollup
@FlywheelDeFi interviews @sreeramkannan discussing EigenLayer
@nickwh8te emphasizes the importance of standard interfaces in modular systems
@veradittakit explains the properties of ZKPs and highlights projects that use them
@nosleepjon explains how Hyperplane works and lets anyone launch a bridge for any asset or chain
@toghrulmaharram outlines a design for “Multi-Verifiers”, building on @VitalikButerin’s “Multi-Prover” idea
@gakonst suggests that L2-as-a-Service offerings will differ significantly, depending on whether they are ZKRs or ORs
@RealVision releases an episode discussing the massive innovation in the Layer 2 space with @antonimarber
@thebellcurvepod releases an episode discussing modular vs. full stack architectures with @nickwh8te and @valardragon
@stonecoldpat0 writes an article on how one honest party protects rollup systems
That's all for this week! Thanks for reading 🧱🎬
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