After more than two years of building, the Ethereum layer-2 zkEVM protocol Scroll has launched to mainnet. The scaling solution enterers the layer-2 ecosystem with a zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine platform for the Ethereum network.
On October 17, Scroll announced that it was live on mainnet, though according to blockchain data, it has already been running in stealth for about a week.
Advanced Ethereum Scaling Options
Scroll offers layer-2 Ethereum compatibility with contracts written for the EVM powered by zero-knowledge proofs.
The launch is a significant milestone in the movement to scale and drive the adoption of the world’s largest smart contract platform.
Over the past year, the team has focused on community building and encouraging developers to express their creativity through experimentation on Scroll. Over 100 projects have deployed on Scroll testnets to date, including infrastructure, , and Web3 gaming projects.
Moreover, Scroll has battle-tested over three testnets because the team prioritized security. Four separate security firms have also independently audited Scroll. Co-founder of Scroll, Haichen Shen, said:
“Scroll approaches security holistically, maintaining a dedicated internal security team, fully auditing our codebase with numerous audit firms, and remaining open-source, which we have been since day one.”
Find out more about Ethereum’s EIP-4844 scaling upgrade
What sets Scroll apart from other L2 protocols is its zkEVM, which offers a virtually identical experience to Ethereum. This enables developers to essentially copy, paste, and deploy their existing Ethereum projects onto Scroll with no codebase changes.
Sandy Peng, co-founder of Scroll, added:
“We focus on enabling developers to build blockchain applications that will web3 in real-world use cases, attracting new users en masse, and moving everyone forward.”
According to Analytics, 2,030 ETH has been deposited on Scroll, the majority coming in the last 24 hours since the launch announcement
Layer-2 Ecosystem Outlook
Scroll comes at a time when Ethereum network fees, or gas prices, have started to tick up again.
Furthermore, the protocol is entering a crowded layer-2 ecosystem that is still dominated by two players. L2 total value locked is currently $10.49 billion, according to , more than doubling since the beginning of this year.
Arbitrum One is the industry leader with a 55% market share followed by Optimism which has a 25% share. Coinbase’s has moved into third place with just over 5% L2 market share.
Nevertheless, L2 activity has started to decline over the past month.
