Ethereum has had a couple of miserable years in terms of price but development on the world’s largest smart contract and dApp platform has continued. Speed and scalability are the keys for mass adoption and a solution is already being developed.
Ethereum Evolution
Ethereum’s infighting in 2016 and 2017 has been replaced by co-operation and alliance-building, according to an article shared by Barry Silbert, the founder and CEO of Digital Currency Group.
Last month, Matter Labs published an in-depth report titled ‘the missing link to mass adoption of Ethereum’. It was shared by Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire who stated that it was a big win for Ethereum based stablecoins.
ZK Rollups now possible and will allow Layer 2 scaling on Ethereum supporting upwards of 3000tps (larger than Visa), while maintaining decentralization and privacy.
The report introduced the concept stating that a successful scaling solution must include the system’s ability to meet the demands of millions of users without sacrificing decentralization. None of them can actually achieve this yet as most public blockchains are still largely experimental and virtually unused.
As Ethereum co-founder, Vitalik Buterin, pointed out in the past, it’s impossible for a blockchain to boast scalability, security and decentralization all at once. He argues that, at most, a blockchain will possess 2 of these traits.
Recent advances in zero knowledge proofs however have opened up new possibilities in this arena. ZK is a cryptographic protocol by which one party can prove to another party that they know a value of something without revealing any information apart from the fact that they know the value.
Visa Scale Throughput
According to the researchers, a solution called ZK Sync is designed to bring a VISA-scale throughput of thousands of transactions per second to the Ethereum network.
ZK Sync is built on ZK Rollup architecture which is a Layer 2 scaling solution that holds all funds on a smart contract on the main chain, while computation and storage are performed off-chain.
Additionally funds remain as secure as in the underlying Layer 1 accounts and maintaining a high degree of censorship-resistance.
Another important aspect of the protocol is its ultra-low latency: transactions in ZK Sync will provide instant economic finality.
The devnet for ZK Sync v0.1 is live and 2020 is likely to see more scaling solutions for Ethereum, as the migration to proof of stake consensus gets underway.
At the moment Ethereum is the same as most crypto assets in that it is primarily used for speculation in markets largely driven by day traders seeking a quick profit.
Scaling solutions such as these, which tackle the blockchain trilemma, are the next step toward Web 3.0, decentralized finance and mass adoption for Ethereum.
Will Ethereum be able to massively scale this year? Add your comments below.
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