gm zkEVM!

Yes, zkSync Era Mainnet is now open to all

Today marks a big milestone for zkSync Era and Ethereum: the gates to the world’s first zkEVM Mainnet are now open in a permissionless manner for everyone to use. We’ve completed robust testing, multiple tier-1 security audits, public contests, and bug bounties. We’ve added independent monitoring and risk mitigation mechanisms. Now developers, projects, and users can build on and bridge funds to experience the power of zkEVM.

Scaling Ethereum isn’t about transaction throughput, costs, or user experience — it’s a means to an end, but not the goal itself. We’re scaling freedom: trustless, barrierless, permissionless economic cooperation.

zkSync was founded because we love freedom. We’re convinced that the single most impactful thing we can do to make the world better today is to increase people’s freedom. More freedom is the key to eliminating poverty, more wealth, more fun and creativity, faster scientific progress, and less injustice brought on by corruption and oppression.

https://zksync.io/ethos

Cryptography is the most important technology protecting the world’s freedom today — because it’s the only protection that a single individual can have against mighty adversaries. Cryptography led to permissionless blockchains which made radical self-sovereignty possible for anyone, for the first time in history.

There’s one big caveat: not everyone can access it yet.

The innate values of crypto will only succeed with its mass adoption; when blockchains meet the demands of millions of users. But trustlessness — the very same thing that makes blockchains so valuable — makes them very hard to scale. The principle “don’t trust, verify” means that every node must verify every single transaction on the network.

But how can a single server possibly verify all of the transactions on the Internet? Turns out it can — with some magic.

Enter succinct zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs: the only protocol capable of enforcing the integrity of arbitrarily large computations, verifiable by anyone with no more than the power of a smartphone.

Four years ago, we understood that ZK technology would be the key to mass adoption. It became our mission, and the team got to work. First, we launched zkSync Lite; a simple ZK-rollup for payments that has now been live on Mainnet since December 2020.

We were just warming up.

Two years later, we introduced the term “zkEVM” and our vision for it. The idea of scaling Ethereum’s smart contracts without compromising on security, decentralization, cost or performance was so powerful that it soon turned into the “holy grail of scaling”; but it also seemed so complex that many experts regarded it as a theoretical concept years away from being functional.

But we quietly kept on building.

Today, the dream we had four years ago comes true: for the first time, a zkEVM is now live and open to everyone on Mainnet with zkSync Era.

Security is hard. Despite investing significant time and money into it — which should be non-negotiable — bugs can remain, especially in the early days.

We have spent over a year and millions of dollars ($3.8 million to be exact) testing and auditing all components of zkSync Era, and at this point in time we are confident it is secure enough to open to the public.

On the one hand, there is a lot of anticipation around zkEVMs, and if we don’t move fast to change the status quo, we will face a setback with adoption before crypto reaches escape velocity. On the other hand, any security incident can not only jeopardize user assets, but most importantly, it can severely undermine people’s trust.

So when is the right time to launch? We believe the time is now. Here’s why.

Before we launched zkSync Era we had to be confident we had done everything to secure the system. We took our time and slowly and very carefully rolled out our technology. We have spent over a year and millions of dollars ($3.8 million to be exact) testing and auditing all components of zkSync Era, and at this point in time we are confident it is secure enough to open to the public.

We have yet to witness a security approach in the scaling space that is as prolonged and comprehensive as ours:

7 independent security audits–and counting–with tier-1 firms such as OpenZeppelin (see two recent reports here and here)

3 internal audits

2 public security contests (see here and here)

Open-ended bug bounty program

Open-sourcing zkSync Era code

Running testnet since February 2022 and Mainnet since October 2022

Beyond security preparation, the best way to secure the protocol is to have it battle-tested in a live production environment over time, and that starts now. zkSync Era will remain in Alpha while we monitor the system with increased usage and TVL. We’ve also added independent monitoring and risk mitigation mechanisms, which will be kept until we lift the Alpha label:

Delaying withdrawals and closely monitoring for anomalie

Permissioning ZK proof submission

Continuously monitoring the system for vulnerabilities

Running additional security audits and bug bounties

Similar to zkSync Lite, we will create a security council once the system matures to allow for emergency protocol upgrades via the zkSync Security Council

While we have built and shipped the system, our work is far from over. Security improvements will never end. Security is not about checking boxes, it is a continuous state of mind.

For users Learn more: zksync.io Bridge funds from Ethereum: bridge.zksync.io Explore the ecosystem: ecosystem.zksync.io

Remember: Alpha means Alpha. Take it easy and don’t put a lot of funds at risk.

For developers

Start building: era.zksync.io

For the latest updates, follow zkSync Era on Twitter and join the conversation on Discord. Interested in shaping the future of Ethereum at Matter Labs? View open roles.