Polygon has decided to release its zkEVM beta network on the mainnet on March 27. 

What Are zkEVMs?

A Zero-Knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (ZKEVM) is a privacy-preserving version of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) that allows for the execution of smart contracts with confidential inputs and outputs. It is based on zero-knowledge proofs, which allow for the verification of a computation without revealing any information about the inputs or outputs.

The ZKEVM is designed to enable developers to build decentralized applications that require privacy for their users, while still leveraging the security and decentralization of the Ethereum network. It accomplishes this by using cryptographic techniques, such as zk-SNARKs, to prove the validity of transactions and smart contract computations while hiding the details of the computation from the network.

The zkEVM concept is still relatively new and experimental, but it has the potential to enable new use cases for blockchain technology, particularly in areas where privacy is a critical concern, such as finance, healthcare, and identity management.

Polygon zkEVM Set To Go Live!

When the Polygon zkEVM (zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine) Testnet was released in October last year, the crypto ecosystem enjoyed what would be the first seamless scaling network for Ethereum. 

Now, with the launch of the Polygon zkEVM Mainnet Beta, Polygon Labs is one step closer to unlocking mass adoption and the full potential of Web3. Over 5,000 smart contracts were executed on the Polygon zkEVM Testnet. During the six months of launching on public testnets, more than 80,000 wallets were created. The Polygon zkEVM has also passed all of Ethereum’s test vectors that apply to a zkEVM. With a subsequent series of tests, the Polygon zkEVM has become cheaper, faster, and safer to use. 

Accomplishments made by Polygon zkEVM to date, Source: Polygon

Polygon Labs will publicize more details about the zkEVM Mainnet Beta in the next couple of weeks. Polygon users and developers will benefit from the security and transparency that the Mainnet Beta is offering. The Polygon zkEVM intends to scale Ethereum by preserving the current Ethereum ecosystem i.e. code, infrastructure, and tooling needs to just function.

The co-founder of Polygon, Sandeep Nailwal, stated: 

“Polygon zkEVM Mainnet is set to be the first fully EVM equivalent ZK rollup to reach mainnet, this represents a huge step towards scaling Ethereum and bringing Web3 to the masses. The countdown is on.”

Defined as the “gold standard for EVM-equivalence”, Polygon zkEVM will allow developers to copy and paste code that executes on Ethereum and use that exact code to build on Polygon zkEVM. Currently, proof times for a set of hundreds of thousands of transactions are quickly approaching two minutes, and that number will improve soon. Similarly, proof costs for an equally large amount of transactions are around $0.06 with a basic transfer costing less than $0.001.