What is Polygon zkEVM & How It Works? [Beginner’s Guide]

Before we discuss what zkEVM is, let us take you through how gas plays an important role in carrying out transactions on the Ethereum network. Let’s take an example. Suppose you have to visit Ohio from Texas, you may take a direct flight to the city and save your time. But if you have less monetary resources and less time, what would you do? Take the train and then perhaps a flight to the city. This reduces the expense of your travel and you reach your destination. 

In the same way, direct transactions on Ethereum could cost a lot of gas fee to validate transactions. 

If a user adjusts its gas limit, chances are the transaction won’t process. So, in order to get the security of the Ethereum blockchain as well as faster transactions, Layer 2 solutions like zkEVM can work as an authentication layer that batches transactions and deploys it to Ethereum that offers proof of validity. This solution will dramatically change the scalability game of Layer 1 and Layer 2. In short, in order to make Ethereum’s ecosystem faster and more efficient, one of the latest methods used by Polygon is zkEVM. 

Read More: Polygon Price Prediction 2023

What is Polygon? 

Polygon is a layer 2 blockchain built on top of Ethereum blockchain. Also called as a side chain, Polygon’s technology primarily reduces the TPS and gas fee to help dApps scale faster without any downtime. MATIC is the native token of the blockchain and is used to carry out certain tasks on the blockchain.

Built by the stalwarts of blockchain technology, Polygon has come a long way to establish itself as a blockchain developer and user centric blockchain. Polygon has already signed some meaningful partnerships with top brands from around the world. Polygon is also commended for it being a scalable blockchain aiming to position itself as a multi-chain haven for different kinds of businesses that may have varying needs. 

An overview of Polygon’s challenges 

Polygon as a technology has always pushed the envelope. Polygon designed four scalability products: ‘Proof of Stake’, Polygon Hermez, Polygon Nighfall and Polygon zkEVM. Before these products were designed, the network was facing issues to bridge the technical gap between zk and its compatibility with Ethereum Virtual Machine.

As a side chain Polygon was identified as a supporting layer 2 blockchain to hold transactions offline. The essence of scalability was missing due to lack of a faster bulk transacting roll up architecture that could offer proof quicker in order to get accepted by Ethereum for deploying it on to the main chain. 

What is a Rollup?

Before we get into understanding what a zkEVM is, let us take a quick scan of what rollups are. Rollups in blockchain comprise of a bunch of transactions which are then turned into one single data. Once done, they are then submitted to the Ethereum mainnet. In short, the rollups take the transactions out of the mainnet to process them off-chain. Once processes, they are then converted into one single piece of data only to be submitted back to the Ethereum mainnet.

What is Polygon zkEVM? 

Polygon’s zkEVM is one of Polygon’s scaling solutions developed to make dApps more scalable. A zk roll up means Zero Knowledge roll up sends transactions in batches to Ethereum for approving it on the main chain.

Validity proof is given by Ethereum after the zk roll up is deployed with a cryptographic proof. Polygon’s zkEVM is Ethereum equivalent which means its byte code can be run on layer 1 as well as layer 2. 

Main Use Cases of zkEVM

With the introduction to zkEVM out of the way, the usages that this feature will have might be of interest. Below mentioned are some of the use cases of zkEVM from Polygon.

Defi Applications: The nature of high security and censorship resistance of Polygon’s zkEVM, it is a good fit for Defi applications. Unlike Optimistic Roll-ups where users have to wait for upto 7 days for deposits and withdrawals, zk-Rollups doesn’t have to wait for long periods for deposits and withdrawals i.e Polygon zkEVM offers better capital efficiency for dApps/users.

NFT, Gamefi and Other applications: The feature of Low gas cost, high transactions and greater level of security coupled with Ethereum composability attracts blue chip NFTs, Gamefi and other applications to zkEVM.

Ways for Payments: Users interested in transacting with each other in real-time within a near-instantaneous and low fee environment will appreciate the value Polygon zkEVM provides.

How Polygon zkEVM reduce cost? 

zkEVM uses a unique approach of batching transactions on Polygon and relaying it to Ethereum for proof of validation. Bulk transactions are processed through zkEVM – zero knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine equivalent using encrypted bytecode used in EVMs. This reduces the transaction fee without compromising on security of transactions. According to recent announcements on the zkEVM launch, the transaction fee could be reduced by 90%. 

Read On: Guide to Polygon zkEVM Airdrop

Layer 2 Scaling Solution for Developers of Payment & DeFi Applications 

zkEVM scaling solution offers high security and censorship resistance making it an ideal solution for DeFi platforms. According to Polygon, the zkEVM solution enables easy deployment of smart contracts and transferring of dApps from Ethereum to Polygon as the architecture, programming language is similar to that of Ethereum.

This also means that developers who are familiar with Metamask, Truffle, Ganache, zeppelin can use these tools on Polygon. Developers can migrate their dApps to Polygon by simply changing the nodes on the blockchain. The new scaling solution will also simplify NFT creation and other transactions and developments on the blockchain. 

Additional Read: Complete Guide To Layer 2 Soltions

How Does Polygon Scale Up Ethereum With zkEVM?

The method that the Polygon network make use of for scalability solutions are Miden, Edge, Zero, Nightfall, Avail, Hermes, and zkEVM. The various advantages that zkEVM is bringing to the table has been a booster for it in becoming so vastly popular nowadays.

Some of the other reasons how it is helping Polygon in scaling are as follows:

• The network is efficient as the developers can run their existing Ethereum smart contracts
• The permissionless access and use of the network makes it easer to work on
• Similarity to EVM means tooling compatibility
• Fast network finality with frequent validity proofs
• Fees reduction upto 90% with on-chain data
• All EVM opcodes are supported
• Decentralized in nature by protocol design

To further understand zkEVM, let us delve into the challenges of zk-Rollups.

Promise & Challenges–Of ZK Rollups 

The process of applying zk to layer 2 blockchain is quite simple. Zk roll up will batch transactions in groups to the main blockchain Ethereum for proof of validation. The zk scalability solution will increase throughput drastically and will reduce the transaction cost as grouped transactions will reduce the time consumption and gas fees too.

While zk has its side of benefits it also has some challenges. One major challenge cited by many is that zk roll ups as a solution may not be compatible with EVMs. With Polygon’s launch of zkEVM on testnet the probability of it being successful on Ethereum can only be decided once it is tested by the developer community. 

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