Polygon zkEVM Brings EVM-Equivalence, Speed, Security, What Else?

Upcoming L2 solution zkEVM by Polygon Network (MATIC) is among the most anticipated releases in Web3 for 2023. On the eve of its activation, Polygon (MATIC) devs yet again summarized how it will change Ethereum (ETH) scaling forever.

From EVM-compatibility to EVM-equivalence: zkEVM launch approaches

The team of Polygon (MATIC) blockchain published a thread to cover the most impressive breakthroughs of Polygon zkEVM, a novel L2 blockchain based on zero-knowledge rollups.

Polygon Labs is preparing for the end-game of Ethereum scaling.

Since we’re closing in on the launch of Polygon zkEVM’s Mainnet Beta, we wanted to break down what this next-gen system will unlock for the community, FEATURE BY FEATURE👇🏽

— Polygon Labs (@0xPolygon) March 6, 2023

First of all, zkEVM replaces the concept of EVM-compatibility with EVM-equivalence. Polygon zkEVM will support all Ethereum (ETH) tooling, allowing developers to use the same code they were deploying to Ethereum (ETH). EVM-equivalence unlocks "truly frictionless scaling" opportunities for Web3 developers.

Then, zkEVM is much faster than all competitors' solutions in terms of data logistics between L1 and L2 infrastructure. For instance, as covered by U.Today previously, zkEVM generates proof in just two minutes.

Such proof can aggregate and verify information about 250-500 transactions of ERC-20 tokens. This pushes the barriers of scaling and operability for dApps of all types.

Bridge security and cost efficiency

The introduction of zkEVM will advance the security of bridge mechanisms that Polygon (MATIC) interact with. Bridges were among the most vulnerable elements of the global DeFi ecosystem in 2021-2022.

With zkEVM, all points of centralization will be removed from the bridge design, so it will be more difficult to attack and control:

When cryptography is the intermediary, compromising the bridge would require creating a proof for an invalid transaction, which can't happen with a proving system that is sound. Because the bridge for Polygon zkEVM will rely on cryptography, with the smart contract verifying a valid proof, there's no entity that can be attacked.

Last but not least, the new solution will be cheaper than all L2s. Polygon zkEVM will be able to handle Uniswap (UNI) transactions for $0.0019, while the fee for a single-token transfer will be about $0.0001.

Polygon (MATIC) is going to launch its zkEVM network in public beta mainnet on March 27, 2023.