Polygon Labs, the firm behind the layer-2 blockchain Polygon, announced Tuesday that the much-anticipated launch of its zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM) mainnet beta will occur on March 27, 2023.
“We are delighted to share the launch date for the Polygon zkEVM Mainnet Beta which is coming in the first quarter of 2023 as promised,” Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder of Polygon Technology, said.
In October, Polygon Labs launched its first public testnet. While rolling out its second testnet in December, the firm noted that it would make the final move before introducing the mainnet.
Zero-Knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM) is a virtual machine designed to execute smart contracts using zero-knowledge-proof computation. The technology aims to solve the scalability issue faced by Ethereum, its parent blockchain. The system also promises to uphold decentralization and security.
Polygon zkEVM Records Milestones
Since its debut in July 2022, Polygon zkEVM has achieved several milestones, signaling interest from investors.
The milestones include more than 84,000 wallets and over 300,000 blocks produced. More than 5,000 smart contracts have been deployed on the system. The technology has also been audited twice by third-party accounting companies.
The statement added that the technology had survived six months of “battle-testing” as it was deployed on public testnets. Over 75,000 ZK proofs have been generated, with nearly two minutes required to generate a proof. The cost tied to proof generation involving large groups of transactions has reduced to around $0.06. This way, trades are executed with as little as $0.001.
Notably, Polygon’s native cryptocurrency, MATIC, saw a mild 5% price jump shortly after press time. At the time of writing, MATIC traded at $1.27.
Other Firms Build zkEVM Technology
Aside from Polygon Labs, other crypto firms are actively building a zkEVM solution. Scroll, another Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution, is working on a zkEVM, and its functionality is similar to that of Polygon Labs’ zkEVM.
Another team is Applied ZKP, which is working on a zk-rollup integrated with the EVM. The project seeks to bolster the privacy and scalability of Ethereum.
