Katherine Ross

Matter Labs, the company behind ZKsync, will lay off 16% of its workforce, or 24 employees, in the company’s first headcount reduction since its inception six years ago.



“Unfortunately, this learning curve isn&#8217;t always perfectly linear. Organizational complexity has a tendency to accumulate over time [&#8230;] We are ensuring that we have the right roles and people in place to be effective in accomplishing our mission,” Matter Labs president Nana Murugesan exclusively told Blockworks.&nbsp;



Murugesan, who joined Matter Labs in April, added that the decision was made to stay “lean.”&nbsp;



But it was also made as part of Matter Labs&#8217; move into its “next phase” of decentralization and its need to hone down the “right roles that need to be in place.”



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/coinbase-exec-hired-matter-labs-president">Coinbase exec departs for zkSync development company</a>



“<a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/matter-labs">Matter Labs</a> has embraced <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/ethereum">Ethereum</a> philosophy, including the philosophy of subtraction. We concentrated on a single mission, which is about accelerating the mass adoption of crypto for personal sovereignty and staying lean,” he explained.&nbsp;



Both Murugesan and CEO Alex Gluchowski clarified the decision was not due to the financial situation of the company, which still plans to carry out “strategic hiring.”



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">I just sent this message to the Matter Labs team: === Today, I’m sharing the hardest change we had to make in the 6-year history of Matter Labs. We are restructuring the organization and parting ways with many amazing team members (~16% of the team). We’ve already reached out…&mdash; Alex G. (∎, ∆) (@gluk64) <a href="https://twitter.com/gluk64/status/1830968752210375030?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 3, 2024</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



“Our financial position remains strong, which we believe will enable us to thrive even in a multi-year bear market. The demand for our technology is also steadily growing, with around a dozen chains launching on the Elastic Chain this year,” Murugesan said.



In 2022, Matter Labs <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/zksync-sharpens-role-ethereum-200m-funding">raised $200 million</a> in a Series C led by Dragonfly and Blockchain Capital.



“We were always very conscious to not overgrow, not make the typical startup mistakes because we were always focused on the long-term goal,” Gluchowski said. “You might have amazing talent, but it might not be the people who you necessarily need for what you need to accomplish, unfortunately.”



Per Matter Labs, impacted employees will be given “several months” of severance pay, extended healthcare benefits and placement support.



“We remain committed to the mission. Our mission has remained unchanged since day one of Matter Labs. We&#8217;ve always been very articulate on advancing the freedom for everyone in the world by accelerating the adoption of crypto technology, public blockchains,” Gluchowski said.



“And we believe that there is the right architecture for [Elastic Chain],” he continued. <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/zk-sync-elastic-chain-rebrand-seeks-to-carve-out-scaling-niche">Hyperchain was renamed Elastic Chain</a> back in July.



“The Elastic Chain is this ultimate vision of connecting the rollups on Ethereum,” Gluchowski added, saying that it remains a priority for Matter Labs, which will continue to build and expand as it continues to see “encouraging” demand.



Updated September 3, 2024 at 10:49 am ET: Added tweet from Matter Labs&#8217; CEO. 



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Matter Labs to cut 16% of workforce

Jack Kubinec

Nana Murugesan, who previously served as the vice president of business development, international and listings at Coinbase, has moved on to become the president of Matter Labs. Matter Labs is the software company developing the layer-2 zkSync, an Ethereum layer-2 focused on zero-knowledge proofs.&nbsp;



Murugesan becomes Matter Labs’ first president. Alex Gluchowski, who also founded the company, is CEO. Murugesan will be responsible for “business, marketing, communications, finance, legal and policy, people and operations functions, expanding our team and ramping up operations,” Matter Labs <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/matterlabs_former-coinbase-executive-nana-murugesan-activity-7186721353704595456-ARZz?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=member_desktop">said</a> while announcing the hire.&nbsp;



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/space-and-time-artificial-intelligence-zksync-hyperchain">zkSync welcomes AI data warehouse as latest addition to hyperchain</a>



“I&#8217;m thrilled to join the Matter Labs team to power mainstream blockchain adoption, enabling practical apps with developers &amp; bringing in the next billion users with @zkSync,” Murugesan <a href="https://x.com/NanaMurugesan/status/1780953583699321296">wrote</a> on X.&nbsp;



While <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/coinbase">Coinbase</a> will have to replace an executive, the departure is not a sudden one. Murugesan <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/binance-anti-crime-staffers-leave">announced that he would be leaving Coinbase</a> in November of last year.



Ex-Coinbase employees run some of crypto’s most notable firms. Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam co-founded crypto venture fund Paradigm. Early Coinbase hires Olaf Carlson-Wee and Dan Romero went on to start Polychain and Farcaster, respectively.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Former Disney gaming exec co-founds Web3 game publisher</h2>



UAE-based Galactic Group is launching a Web3 game publishing arm named Galactic Entertainment, the company said in a press release.&nbsp;



Mark Meyers, the company’s co-founder and chief publishing officer, rose to become the head of Disney’s gaming studios in the late aughts, leaving the company in 2012 to found an Internet of Things startup.



In a press release, Meyers extolled Web3 <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/gaming">games’</a> ability to let players earn “in-game goods that they actually own.”



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/immutable-polygon-web3-gaming-fund">Immutable and Polygon Labs launch Inevitable Games Fund with hopes of raising $100M</a>



The company, Galactic Entertainment Publishing, is pushing PlanetQuest, which the company describes as Star Wars-like, as its first franchise. The game is set for early access release later this year, and Galactic is planning comics and a book trilogy for the franchise as well.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Other notable hiring news</h2>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Longtime senior executives at crypto exchange OKX Tim Byun and Wei Lan left the company for unclear reasons, CoinDesk <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2024/04/16/okx-og-execs-tim-byun-and-wei-lan-leave-crypto-exchange/?utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_source=rss&amp;utm_campaign=headlines">reported</a>.</li>



<li>Franklin Bi <a href="https://x.com/PanteraCapital/status/1778832423364477401">became</a> general partner at Pantera Capital.</li>



<li>Former Coindesk editor and reporter Tracy Wang <a href="https://x.com/0x_tracy/status/1780603968910991442">joined</a> Framework Ventures as head of special projects.</li>



<li>Stephen Levin <a href="https://x.com/smlevin11/status/1778423958301184229">started</a> as head of ops, finance, people and legal at Flashbots.</li>



<li>Natalie Mullins <a href="https://twitter.com/eclecticcapital/status/1780612566017814569">became</a> an associate investor at Bain Capital Crypto.</li>
</ul>



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Crypto Hiring: Coinbase exec departs for zkSync development company

Bessie Liu

A new NFT marketplace that enables users to anonymously bid on NFTs has landed on zkSync Era, Polygon PoS and Ethereum.&nbsp;



Blockframe is designing an NFT platform that innovates proprietary features and wants to ensure that creators are being prioritized.&nbsp;



In an interview with Blockworks, Mohamed El Tahawy, the president and CEO of Blockframe, said that existing barriers to entry to crypto are insurmountable.



“It’s very difficult for people to figure out how to get a MetaMask wallet, then once you have a MetaMask wallet, what are all these currencies and how do I make swaps,” El Tahawy said.



To resolve this, El Tahawy explains that Blockframe, backed by Matter Labs, will simplify this process for its users.&nbsp;



“At Blockframe, we’ve implemented a single sign-on, which means users can sign in with Google, Discord, Twitter, and we would automatically create a wallet for them,” he said.



Once a wallet is created, users can use the same interface to on-ramp, send and swap cryptocurrencies. User private keys will not be stored or accessible by Blockframe, El Tahawy notes.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Honest price discovery</h2>



To ensure NFT prices on Blockframe remain reliable, the team is introducing sealed bid auctions.



Rather than relying on <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/oracles">oracles</a> to determine NFT pricing, multiple bidders will be able to place collateralized bids anonymously to establish the value of a given digital collectible. It’s made possible by zero knowledge (ZK) technology.&nbsp;



Using zkTrees designed by Polymer Labs, the team has created “<a href="https://blockframe.substack.com/p/bulk-semaphore-garden-variety-nft">Bulk Semaphore</a>,” a protocol designed to form market consensus for the price of an NFT through mass unidentified membership and signaling.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">4/ Despite their advantages, the implementation of a sealed-bid auction on the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/blockchain?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#blockchain</a> was impossible due to prohibitive gas costs — until now using ZK tech.&mdash; Blockframe (@Blockframe_io) <a href="https://twitter.com/Blockframe_io/status/1676584227180257280?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 5, 2023</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Using this protocol, an unlimited number of participants will be able to bid on auctions at a consistent cost. El Tahawy said the tool can also be used for anonymous voting in <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/daos">DAOs</a>.&nbsp;



“Our partnership with Matter Labs was very strategic for their mission of scale and their contributions in creating the Block Semaphore protocol,” El Tahawy said.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Simplifying NFTs for creators</h2>



Creators looking to launch their own <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/nfts">NFT</a> collections can do so directly on the Blockframe user interface (UI).



“The idea is that creators can come here and claim royalties for their collection, thereby tokenizing it,” El Tahawy said.&nbsp;



Creators can create royalty contracts for their own NFT collections, which will later represent all future cash flows. Once a royalty token is created, they can set parameters for royalty revenue.&nbsp; <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/llXqAjr8xgqJzg8MogH98uV_L00m62cqCOl88Q8siBBxowPJkMoaYMmabNW-zd2nS2jZyrkeWBhotGJOIuHgHxfbXigT0erEnkT1zyOPoO2WrD0GTy1U7tQw0QBUTTHcXcgWHbCLywaSXLKKXMZbXA8" width="356" height="348">



Source: Blockframe



At launch, NFTs without claimed royalties will have a 0% royalty rate. The exception: the top 200 collections, which impose automatic royalty contracts.&nbsp;



Once pricing for NFTs is standardized, Blockframe plans to ensure royalties on new collections created are applied across different marketplaces —&nbsp; a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/nft-royalties-sometimes-they-work-sometimes-they-dont">problem that has yet to be resolved</a>.



Updated Aug. 31, 2023 at 10:13 am ET: Clarified context throughout.



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Blockframe using sealed bid auctions for NFT price discovery

Sebastian Sinclair

A dispute has erupted in the open-source community, with the Polygon Zero team, a branch of the Polygon project, accusing rival Matter Labs of appropriating significant amounts of source code without adequate attribution.



The crux of the disagreement centers around the <a href="https://mirror.xyz/0x70DF15b0208eFCeFaA541Da9A0ED6C4A884554Fc/gNi8coqXjd1ybFsQBAG7QARUkPHZECu7ihIRkpiVx2Y" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">new proving system</a> developed by Matter Labs called Boojum.&nbsp;



Polygon alleges that the system incorporates a considerable amount of code from Plonky2, their open-source library designed for optimizing zero-knowledge-proof systems, according to a <a href="https://mirror.xyz/0x70DF15b0208eFCeFaA541Da9A0ED6C4A884554Fc/gNi8coqXjd1ybFsQBAG7QARUkPHZECu7ihIRkpiVx2Y">blog post</a> published by Polygon Zero on Thursday.



They further claim that Matter Labs has misrepresented the origin and performance of Boojum, both in attributing the original developers and in claiming superior speed to Plonky2.&nbsp;



Matter Labs is known for the development of zkSync, a trustless scaling solution for Ethereum based on zero-knowledge proof technology. The pair first announced their <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/polygon-and-matter-labs-compete-on-zkevm-rollups">public testnets</a> based on zero-knowledge tech back in October with Polygon first out of the gate.



Alex Gluchowski, co-founder of Matter Labs, dismissed Polygon’s allegations as &#8220;unfounded, misleading, and extremely disappointing,&#8221; in a detailed rebuttal on <a href="https://twitter.com/gluk64/status/1687263207860166656?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">social media</a>.



Gluchowski also outlined several key points to refute the allegations, underlining that only about 5% of Boojum’s code is based on Plonky2&#8217;s.



&#8220;The reader of the Polygon Zero post is left with the impression that Boojum is largely using Plonky2 code with little innovation, and that we allegedly re-used this code without providing any attribution to the original work.&#8221; These claims &#8220;could not be further from the truth,&#8221; Gluchowski stated.



The co-founder further clarified that Matter Labs&#8217; team introduced <a href="https://eprint.iacr.org/2019/1400.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">RedShift</a>, the cryptographic proof system on which both Plonky2 and Boojum are based, three years prior to the former’s release paper, something which he has publicly <a href="https://twitter.com/gluk64/status/1680878564072103936?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">noted</a> before.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">Both Plonky2 and Boojum are implementations of RedShift (Plonk + FRI). We borrowed some dope ideas from Plonky2, but did many things differently (see README). At the end, Boojum is more than an order of magnitude faster (see <a href="https://twitter.com/CelerNetwork?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@CelerNetwork</a>&#39;s benchmarks).<a href="https://t.co/k93qYyZW8B">https://t.co/k93qYyZW8B</a>&mdash; Alex G. ∎ (@gluk64) <a href="https://twitter.com/gluk64/status/1680878564072103936?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 17, 2023</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



A clear attribution for the reused code is provided in the main file of the module, Gluchowski added, with additional acknowledgments to Plonky2 made in the README file and the introductory post.



Polygon had earlier stressed the importance of maintaining integrity in the open-source ecosystem, per the post.



Disregarding open-source norms can damage innovation and collaboration among developers, especially for smaller teams heavily reliant on the benefits of open-source contributions, Polygon Zero argues.



Starkware co-founder Eli Ben-Sasson, whose company is a competitor to both Polygon and Matter Labs, appeared to <a href="https://twitter.com/elibensasson/status/1687162808071307264" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">weigh in</a> on the side of Polygon, <a href="https://twitter.com/ukolodny/status/1687163140742529032?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">as did</a> Starkware CEO Uri Kolodny.



Louis Guthmann, ecosystem lead at StarkWare, clarified to Blockworks that the issue is Matter Labs&#8217; &#8220;did not have attribution in the right place, which is breaking the license.&#8221;



But Michael Lewellen, a security solutions architect at OpenZeppelin, which has an ongoing auditing contract with Matter Labs, <a href="https://twitter.com/lewellenmichael/status/1687164201800777740" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a> any shortcoming in attribution was “unintentional.”



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">It&#39;s important to call out proper attribution when borrowing open-source code but this appears to be a genuine mistake, not intentional. Plonky2 was previously mentioned in docs and in public tweets by the <a href="https://twitter.com/zksync?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@zksync</a> team. <a href="https://t.co/LkGFFGTqzy">https://t.co/LkGFFGTqzy</a>&mdash; Michael Lewellen (@LewellenMichael) <a href="https://twitter.com/LewellenMichael/status/1687164201800777740?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 3, 2023</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



&#8220;They didn&#8217;t include ALL the information that an official attribution should have: original license, link to original code, etc.,&#8221; Lewellen, told Blockworks.



Gluchowski acknowledged the deficit but suggested a more cooperative approach, saying, &#8220;If the Polygon Zero team wanted additional credit, the easiest way would have been to submit a pull request which we would have happily accepted.&#8221;



A Polygon spokesperson told Blockworks that Polygon had indeed submitted a pull request on Github.



Macauley Peterson contributed reporting.



Updated, Friday Aug. 4, 2023 at 9:40 am ET with additional comments and context.



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Polygon Zero and Matter Labs square off over open-source norms

Ankr teamed up with Matter Labs to bring zkSync Era Nodes and Hyperchain blockchain solutions to Ankr’s Azure Marketplace.&nbsp;



<a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/microsoft" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Ankr</a> and <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/microsoft" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Microsoft</a> teamed up earlier this year, with Ankr’s Azure listings launched in June. 



Ankr is a Web3 infrastructure provider, while <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/matter-labs" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Matter Labs</a> is the developer behind the Ethereum layer-2 rollup zkSync.



According to a press release, the aim is to integrate technology from all three — Microsoft&#8217;s cloud infrastructure, zkSync Era’s blockchain network and Ankr’s solutions.



“The zkSync Era node deployment service will offer global blockchain connections enabling any enterprise or web3 project to connect to or build web3 apps on top of zkSync Era, a zkEVM Ethereum Layer-2 scaling protocol,” the release said.



In a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/zk-embodies-integrity-privacy-magic" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">June document focused on zero-knowledge tech</a>, the team at Matter Labs said they want zero-knowledge (ZK) proof technology to embody “integrity, privacy and magic.”



“If we want to scale blockchain technology like the internet, we need to be able to accommodate the most complex Web2 use cases with the most stringent requirements in terms of security, performance and privacy, among other factors,” said Marco Cora, senior vice president of business and operations at Matter Labs.



Cora also hopes the partnership will “lower the barrier to entry and ignite enterprise adoption of blockchains. With the addition of our recently announced ZK Stack, we expect more and more enterprise use cases to take off on zkSync Era.”



Enterprises will be able to both build and launch a customizable hyperchain blockchain to further push their Web3 aspirations. Additionally, Ankr’s team will offer support and engineering.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Read more: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ankr-doubles-down-on-decentralization-of-web3-infrastructure" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Ankr Doubles Down on Decentralization of Web3 Infrastructure</a>



“By offering the ability to build on zkSync Era via Ankr’s Microsoft Azure Marketplace solutions, we are breaking barriers to entry for an array of businesses that need their unique scalability and performance requirements met before they begin building out their Web3 initiatives,” Ankr CEO Chandler Song said.



Microsoft also <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/microsoft-axelar-team-up" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">announced a partnership with Axelar</a> earlier this month. The team-up between the technology company and the interoperability network would also help companies on the Azure Marketplace access services and developer tools for their pushes into blockchain technology.



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Microsoft Azure node deployment opens door for easier Web3 app development

Darren Kleine

It’s official. ZK Stack is now available to developers.



Matter Labs, developers of the zero-knowledge layer-2 scaling solution zkSync Era, recently released the open-source code to the public.



So what’s so special about it?



Matter Labs’ Alex Gluchowski and Anthony Rose spoke to Blockworks on the 0xResearch podcast (<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/are-hyperchains-the-scaling-end-game-alex-gluchowski/id1651683074?i=1000618738693">Apple</a>/<a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/2nZ9iEzKuMCDV3p5tPxbhS?si=7421bfb1da6745cc">Spotify</a>) about the nuts and bolts of the <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/ethereum">Ethereum</a>-compatible open-source protocol that <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/zksync-launches-op-stack-rival">rivals Optimism’s OP Stack</a>.



ZK Stack is a modular framework for building highly customizable blockchains, CEO Gluchowski told Blockworks. The <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/layer-2-2">layer-2</a> tech uses cryptographic <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/zero-knowledge-rollup">zero-knowledge proofs</a> rather than the “<a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/optimism">optimistic</a>” approach to rollups, which assumes transaction validity unless proven otherwise.&nbsp;



Senior vice-president of technology Rose says the system includes all the “core components” that together would be used to form “hyperchains.”



The stack will also include “the tooling around that,” he says, like compilers, SDKs for configurations and so forth. “Essentially,” it’s everything needed “to be able to deploy a version of this system that <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/zksyncs-evm-era-opens-to-the-public">looks like Era today</a>, but over time could be more flexible.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Customize or copy-paste</h2>



“You can start with all the defaults. Just copy the configuration of zkSync Era,” Gluchowski explains. “Or you can say, I want this component to look differently.”&nbsp;



Gluchowski explains the sequencer can be customized to be <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/shared-sequencers-decentralization">centralized or decentralized</a> in functionality, depending on the developer’s needs and preferences.&nbsp;



While certain enterprises, banks or gaming companies might not feel a need to decentralize the sequencer, Gluchowski expects most chains to sequence transactions in a decentralized manner.



“You will be able to choose all of the parameters, which consensus algorithm you want to use, how you secure it, what token you want to use there and so on.”



The <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sovereign-rollups-blockchain-scaling">data availability</a> mechanism is also customizable, Gluchowski continues.&nbsp;



“ZK <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/rollups">rollup</a> is an architecture in which you publish data availability through the Ethereum network,” He says. “You rely on Ethereum&#8217;s layer-1 as your data availability layer.”



Because the technology relies on Ethereum’s mainnet for security, it is “by far, the most secure option,” he says. But as of now, he admits, this security comes “at a price.”



“All the rollups on Ethereum — Optimistic and ZK rollups alike — share the same data bandwidth, the same limited block space which you can utilize for your data.”



“It&#8217;s currently pretty limited,” he says, but will be extended once <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/addresses-helping-ethereum-scale">proto-danksharding</a> is implemented on Ethereum. Data availability demands will be “a bottleneck” for now, he says, adding it may need to be managed by other parties in the meantime to handle demands.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">A seamless experience</h2>



According to Gluchowski, one major advantage of the new tech is its ability to provide complex interactions between decentralized parties in seamless transactions.&nbsp;



Users will be able to interact with all the <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/defi">DeFi</a> protocols like <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/uniswap">Uniswap</a> or <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/curve">Curve</a> “on the ZK rollup side,” he says.



<iframe loading="lazy" frameborder="0" height="200" scrolling="no" src="https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=BWG5876275251" width="100%"></iframe>







“Imagine Uniswap would launch their own ‘Uni-chain’ as a separate hyper chain in the zkSync network,” he says. The chain would be fully separate with its own sequencer and enjoy all the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/zk-rollups-future-of-smart-contract-blockchains">benefits of security provided by Ethereum</a>.



If an individual with funds in a wallet on zkSync Era wanted to interact with Uniswap on-chain and execute a trade, it would appear as one seamless transaction to the user, he says.&nbsp;



The transaction would bridge from Era over a “hyper-bridge” to the Uniswap chain, where it would reach the smart contract and swap tokens. The tokens would then be sent back over the bridge to the user wallet.



“All of that will happen asynchronously, but atomically,” Gluchowski says. In other words, “all of these transactions will be scheduled and they cannot be stopped.”



“For you as a user, you just wait a couple of minutes and the funds come back.”



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ZK Stack developers can now build custom ‘hyperchains’ on Ethereum

Macauley Peterson

The team at Matter Labs, developers of Ethereum layer-2 rollup zkSync published a “ZK Credo” document on its GitHub page Friday, outlining a vision for the “Internet of Value.”



It’s “a sort of manifesto,” CEO Alex Gluchowski told Blockworks. “A set of guiding principles that we see necessary for blockchain networks to embody.”



According to the document, zero-knowledge proof technology will be needed and specifically, on Ethereum, which “comes closest to realizing the vision,” according to <a href="https://github.com/zksync/credo">the document</a>.



“It&#8217;s not rhetoric,” Gluchowski said. “We&#8217;re coming with a very specific set of principles with very strict definitions as a North star for our community to judge are we on the right track or not.”



Most of the principles are familiar to all advocates of <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/measuring-decentralization-is-your-crypto-decentralized">decentralized</a> public blockchains, such as <a href="https://www.blockworksresearch.com/glossary#trustless">trustlessness</a>, security, reliability and <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/censorship">censorship-resistance</a>.



But some are still aspirational for Ethereum, such as privacy, scalability — or what zkSync calls “hyperscalability” — accessibility, especially relative to centralized alternatives, and sovereignty.



This last criteria, sovereignty, may be underappreciated. The ZK Credo calls it “a moral obligation” defined as the property that “any group of users, even a minority, must have the right to exit — i.e., fork away from the network, while taking their assets with them at a minimal cost.”



To explain, the document draws a parallel to Web2 and the history of the internet as “a cautionary tale.”



“Its inception promised decentralization, but over time user data and traffic fell into the control of a few tech giants, shaping the digital landscape to their advantage,” the document says.



A <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/polygon-2-deployed-outside-us">similar, albeit more platform specific, vision statement</a> from Polygon last week referred to a notion of the “value layer” as “the missing piece of an Internet that serves users, not gate-keepers, rent-seekers or middle-men.”



One criticism sometimes <a href="https://twitter.com/_Checkmatey_/status/1555719158343532545">leveled</a> against Ethereum is that it has the potential to be co-opted by powerful interests, such as a major stablecoin issuer or dominant liquid staking protocol. Ethereum co-found Vitalik Buterin <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/dont-overuse-social-consensus-vitalik-warns">recently mused</a> on the risk of overreliance on the community’s social consensus decision-making.



But Gluchowski downplays such fears.



“I think people underestimate the power of the community,” he said, citing the events of Circle’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/circle-stand-behind-usdc">USDC losing its peg</a> to the dollar in March as a prime example.



“All the rest of DeFi continued working fine — everything was still operational,” Gluchowski said. “We saw that the Ethereum systems — decentralized systems — turned out to be inherently much more resilient than this, allegedly, very powerful entity.”



Gluchowski, who grew up in Ukraine and immigrated to Germany as an adult, recently <a href="https://youtu.be/CdGsULWg6-4?t=61">described</a> to The Defiant how his interest in technology and freedom and their role in building a prosperous society, attracted him to Ethereum.



“If the community commits to forking away if the core principles of the decentralized networks — of the internet of value — are compromised, and there is a strong credible commitment to this, no one will attempt to compromise these principles,&#8221; he told Blockworks.



“The users will say, we&#8217;re going to exit no matter what.”



ZKSync <a href="https://twitter.com/zksync/status/1672224311057285120?s=20">pitches</a> its statement of principles as non-exclusive, belonging to “the entire Web3 ecosystem.”



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‘ZK embodies integrity, privacy and magic’: Matter Labs

James Cirrone

OKX is setting up shop in France and plans to hire 100 full time employees there in the next three years, an OK Group executive said.&nbsp;



As part of this move, the crypto exchange has applied to be registered as a Digital Asset Service Provider (DASP) in France. With the DASP license, a firm is allowed to provide digital asset custody and operate a crypto trading platform. More than 70 other <a href="https://www.amf-france.org/en/professionals/fintech/my-relations-amf/obtain-dasp-authorisation#List_of_DASPs_registered_with_the_AMF">approved</a> DASPs operate in the country including Bitstamp, Societe Generale Forge, and the French division of Luno.



Binance got its hands on a French license back in May 2022, and it was the company’s first DASP in Europe, per a <a href="https://www.binance.com/en/blog/markets/binance-is-now-a-fully-regulated-digital-asset-service-provider-in-france-421499824684903809">statement</a>. According to Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, the world’s largest crypto exchange had <a href="https://www.coindesk.com/business/2023/05/23/crypto-exchange-okx-targets-france-as-regional-hub-with-plan-to-hire-100-people/">hired</a> 150 people for its Paris operations by September 2022.&nbsp;



OKX expects the DASP registration process to take up to six months.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Matter Labs expands its talent pool</h2>



Similar to the crypto startup funding space, Web3 gaming was a dominant force in hiring news this week.&nbsp;



Matter Labs, the builder of layer-2 scaling solution zkSync, hired former Activision Blizzard executive Michael Lee as its senior vice president of growth.&nbsp;



Lee served as Activision’s vice president of community since 2022 and focused mainly on managing the immense web of over 400 million players of games such as Call of Duty, Overwatch and World of WarCraft.&nbsp;



Lee was also a vice president for three years at Dfinity, a contributor to the Internet Computer Blockchain.&nbsp;



In his new role, Lee will be tasked with making zkSync into a gaming platform.&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Other notable hires</h2>



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Gate.HK, which recently opened for trading on May 23 in Hong Kong, has <a href="https://www.efinancialcareers.co.uk/news/2023/05/hong-kong-digital-asset-ceo">hired</a> former BNP-Paribas director Kevin Lee as its CEO. Hong Kong, ever since it <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/hong-kong-to-lift-crypto-ban">allowed crypto exchanges to operate</a> within its borders, has seen <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/crypto-exchanges-hong-kong">a flurry of new market entrants</a>.</li>



<li>The Fed is <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/3614474108/">looking</a> for a “Senior Financial Institution Policy Analyst” on Linkedin. This new employee would be responsible for tracking and assessing “novel fintech activities” conducted by banks, including things related to “crypto-assets” and “distributed ledger technology.” The job posting has been up for four days and has 20 applicants.</li>
</ul>



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Crypto Hiring: OKX Wants 100 More Full-timers, Matter Labs Hires Activision Exec

Ethereum has a new scaling solution reaching public mainnet, going live Friday. ZkSync’s EVM-compatible zero-knowledge proof-based rollup is open to the public from 10:00 am ET.



The zkEVM, which <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/matter-labs-rebrands-zkevm">rebranded to zkSync Era</a> last month, has been open to developers-only <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/zksync-sharpens-role-ethereum-200m-funding">since October 2022</a>. But now the proverbial training wheels are coming off and the public will have their first chance to interact with dapps on the platform.



ZkSync Era was previously known as zkSync 2.0, and its 1.0 cousin, launched by developer Matter Labs in December 2020, remains live as zkSync Lite.



A rival zkEVM from Polygon was <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/polygon-zkevm-beta-live-on-ethereum">announced in mid-February</a> and its equivalent offering, which the team calls “Mainnet Beta,” is expected to go live on Monday, March 27.



So, the zkSync folks can lay claim to being “the world’s first zkEVM mainnet,” if only by a weekend.



Matter Labs’ co-founder and CEO Alex Gluchowski told Blockworks the timing is coincidental, and Era’s alpha launch milestone is arriving right on schedule, following the completion of a second public <a href="http://code4rena.com/contests/2023-03-zksync-era-system-contracts-contest">security contest</a> via Code4rena.



“Now we feel completely safe to launch,” Gluchowski said, stressing that the testing of the product has been extensive.



The developers spent $3.8 million on testing and auditing, according to a statement shared with Blockworks, including seven independent security audits — <a href="https://blog.openzeppelin.com/zksync-layer-1-audit/">one</a> with leading auditor OpenZeppelin — and an open-ended bug bounty program <a href="https://immunefi.com/bounty/zksyncera/">with Immunefi</a>.



“You really need this layered approach to security,” Gluchowski said, adding, “Now we feel comfortable, but I mean it’s still Alpha — people have to understand it’s still brand new technology.”



He pointed to the <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/euler-bounty-defi-flash-loan-attack">recent exploit of Euler Finance</a>, whose smart contracts were audited by a reputable firm and were live for the better part of a year, as an example of how audits alone aren’t enough.



The combination of external and internal audits, public security contests and bug bounties and a developer gated release, Gluchowki thinks should be industry standard practice.



The zkSync Era code is also fully <a href="https://github.com/matter-labs/zksync-era">open-source</a>, including the prover, which the team <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/zksync-sharpens-role-ethereum-200m-funding">sees as a competitive differentiator</a>.



“We open-sourced everything the moment we opened the network to developers — as we promised — under a permissive MIT Apache 2 License,” Gluchowski said, explaining the rationale is that they “believe it’s fundamental to crypto have the code open-source and forkable, because that’s tied to the ethos and values of Ethereum.”



Another key feature is native <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/what-are-smart-contract-wallets">account abstraction</a>, which will allow Era users to pay transaction fees in any token or even let dapp developers pay users’ fees.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Looking forward: Decentralization</h2>



There remain guardrails in place, such as a delay period for withdrawals, initially set to 24 hours, but which will be reduced gradually, Gluchowski said.



“In the initial phase, we will be still running the sequencer [and] we have the right to upgrade the contracts — it’s not yet fully decentralized,” he said.



The plan is to follow a similar approach to that of zkSync Lite, which has a <a href="https://blog.matter-labs.io/security-council-2-0-2337a555f17a" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">security council</a> that supervises protocol upgrades.



“We can’t guarantee that there are no problems, we encourage people to experiment slowly,” Gluchowski said.



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ZkSync’s zkEVM ‘Era’ Opens to the Public

The Ethereum layer-2 scaling race has just gotten tighter.



Pre-registered projects are now able to deploy Matter Labs’ latest zero knowledge (zk) roll-up technology on the Ethereum network.



To differentiate the distinct versions of their scaling solutions, Matter Labs has rebranded zkSync 1.0 to zkSync Lite and zkSync 2.0 to zkSync Era, the latter allowing dapps compatible with the Ethereum virtual machine (EVM).



ZkSync Lite saw lackluster adoption compared to other layer-2s due to the lack of smart contract support, leaving it with minimal utility, <a href="https://www.blockworksresearch.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Blockworks Research</a> analyst <a href="https://www.blockworksresearch.com/research?author=sam" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Sam Martin</a> noted in a <a href="https://www.blockworksresearch.com/research/zksync-a-peek-into-the-future-of-ethereum" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">report</a>.&nbsp;



Dubbed the Fair Onboarding Alpha Stage, this will be the final stage before zkSync Era becomes fully available for all projects on Ethereum mainnet.&nbsp;



This stage will last roughly four to six weeks before Full Launch Alpha, given that there are no security considerations, Anthony Rose, the head of engineering at Matter Labs, told Blockworks.&nbsp;



During this time, mainnet will be closed to end users, enabling projects to deploy and test their applications in a closed environment, Shazia Hasan, protocol marketing lead at Matter Labs wrote in a <a href="https://blog.matter-labs.io/all-aboard-zksync-era-mainnet-8b8964ba7c59" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">blog post</a>.&nbsp;



ZkSync Era will be completely open source — though Matter Labs does not advise forking the code now, as there may still be security updates that need to be addressed.



Rose does not envision a prover standard to emerge following the launch of ZkSync Era, but notes that “you could imagine a world in which there are the standard network effects — perhaps ~1-2 main players, space for a handful of smaller players — and it isn’t a given that a single prover is required for this scenario.”



“That being said, there are obvious benefits from standardization and our plans for <a href="https://blog.matter-labs.io/zksync-l3-pathfinder-to-hit-testnet-in-q1-2023-367a425592db" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Hyperchains</a> are possible due to (in part) some functionality that is possible when you share a proof system,” Rose said.



Hyperchains are what Matter Labs calls layer-3 blockchains that the team says “will enable limitless scaling with limitless customization,” according to a <a href="https://blog.matter-labs.io/zksync-l3-pathfinder-to-hit-testnet-in-q1-2023-367a425592db" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">blog</a> post.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Fierce competition for roll-up technology solutions&nbsp;</h2>



Matter Lab’s launch of Era comes just two days after layer-2 scaling giant Polygon Labs announced that <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/polygon-zkevm-beta-live-on-ethereum">its zkEVM solution would go live on Ethereum</a> mainnet next month.



This latest deployment “marks another milestone in zk rollup development as teams from Polygon, Scroll, Taiko, and others get closer to a fully fleshed out zkEVM fully accessible to everyone,” Martin said.



Unlike Polygon’s zkEVM which has been classified as a <a href="https://vitalik.ca/general/2022/08/04/zkevm.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">type-3</a> by Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, Era is classified as a <a href="https://vitalik.ca/general/2022/08/04/zkevm.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">type-4</a> zkEVM.&nbsp;



This is because “it takes high-level smart contract source code written in Solidity and compiles it to a more zk-SNARK friendly language,” Martin said.



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Matter Labs Rebrands zkEVM, Opens Mainnet for Developers

Good software development takes money and time. Despite the present crypto winter — generally regarded as having started in late May but turned blizzard by <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/?s=ftx" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">FTX going bust</a> — venture capital has <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/tag/funding/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">continued to flow</a> into blockchain startups.



That may change now, as the full extent of the FTX contagion is just starting to emerge. But if it does, then Matter Labs, developers of Ethereum layer-2 zkSync, may have gotten in under the wire.



The company announced a $200 million Series C, Wednesday, co-led by Blockchain Capital and Dragonfly, with participation from LightSpeed Venture Partners, Variant, plus Andreessen Horowitz and other prior venture partners.



Read More: <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/zk-rollups-future-of-smart-contract-blockchains">What Are ZK Rollups? The Future of Smart Contract Blockchains</a>



Throw in Matter Labs’ $58 million in venture funding from its Series B and earlier rounds, and a previously announced — though not yet delivered — $200 million ecosystem fund <a href="https://discourse.bitdao.io/t/passed-bip-7-zkdao-accelerating-the-mass-adoption-of-crypto-for-financial-sovereignty/1546" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">from BitDAO</a>, and the company claims $458 million in total funding lined up.



That should see the project through even the darkest winter days, according to chief product officer Steve Newcomb.&nbsp;



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“No matter how bad this bear market gets, we are well positioned to grow our team, ship our protocol, and ship our mission,” he said.</blockquote>



The stated mission is “to accelerate the mass adoption of crypto for personal sovereignty,” according to a statement, one which Newcomb said is simpatico with Ethereum itself.



In an interview with Blockworks, Newcomb embraced the concept of the “network state” featured in Balaji Srinivasan’s book of the same name. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin <a href="https://vitalik.ca/general/2022/07/13/networkstates.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">has called it</a> “an ideological successor to libertarianism,” and “an attempt to sketch out a possible broader political narrative for the crypto space.”



Newcomb describes Matter Labs’ approach as the “Mission to Citizen model,” which prioritizes the overall development of Ethereum above “any normal competitive advantage that you could go after.”



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">The battle to out-open-source the competition</h3>



In blockchain software stacks, <a href="https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/security-through-obscurity" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">security through obscurity</a> is a losing strategy. Open source software went from “a cancer” <a href="https://www.theregister.com/2001/06/02/ballmer_linux_is_a_cancer/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">derided by</a> Microsoft’s CEO in 2001 to <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20131003190011-29380071-the-cloudera-model/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">becoming the norm</a> in little more than a decade. It’s been <a href="https://www.coincenter.org/education/advanced-topics/open-source/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">a key part</a> of the crypto ethos since the beginning.



The “ZK” in zkSync refers to zero knowledge proofs. <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/news/defi-is-betting-big-on-zero-knowledge-is-the-technology-ready/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Rollups using the technique</a> bundle transactions, drastically reducing the amount of data needed to be passed to mainnet Ethereum while preserving a high level of security, proponents say.



The intended end result is an ecosystem that can reliably handle more transactions, faster.



Matter Labs is one of several teams vying to build ZK-rollup-based scaling solutions compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). ZkSync 2.0 went live on mainnet on Oct. 28. Others include <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/?s=polygon">Po</a><a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/?s=polygon" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">l</a><a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/?s=polygon">ygon</a> with its <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/news/polygon-unveils-zkevm-the-holy-grail-of-scaling/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">zkEVM</a>, unveiled in July, Scroll and new entrant Taiko which are still early in their development.



<a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/tag/starkware/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">StarkWare</a> doesn’t support dapps written for the EVM and instead has pursued its own approach to an execution layer which is theoretically more scalable. Loopring, which <a href="https://medium.loopring.io/loopring-launches-zkrollup-exchange-loopring-io-d6a85beeed21" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">launched</a> a ZK-rollup exchange way back in February 2020 also falls into this category.



A key component of all <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/zk-rollups-future-of-smart-contract-blockchains">ZK-rollups</a> is the “prover,” which essentially guarantees correctness in the system as transactions are processed. Part of today’s announcement from zkSync is that it will apply an MIT Open Source license to the whole technology stack — including the prover — sometime before the end of 2022.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“It will be the first time that a general-purpose ZK-rollup’s technology is released that offers developers the freedom to 1) view the code 2) modify the code and 3) fork the code,” Matter Labs said in a statement.</blockquote>



StarkWare is only partly open source and uses <a href="https://starkware.co/starkware-polaris-prover-license/">a more restrictive license</a>.



Building a prover is “a Herculean task in terms of math, engineering and software,” StarkWare president Eli Ben-Sasson, <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/news/defi-is-betting-big-on-zero-knowledge-is-the-technology-ready/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">previously told</a> Blockworks. “We have a team of 100 and have been at it for four years.”



Polygon told Blockworks by email that its prover “does not currently have an open source license as it undergoes audits,” but added, “it will be freely licensed in the future.”



The Polygon team also said “the best way to verify that a team has a working prover is to examine source code,” noting that it has already published its zkEVM in full.



Having a fully open source prover increases the chances that an Ethereum rollup ecosystem will form around one shared prover, Newcomb said, which would bring benefits such as obviating the need for <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/?s=bridge" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">bridges</a>.



What if Polygon or StarkWare opt to adopt MIT open source standards too?



“It would be huge!” Newcomb said. Such a development “guarantees that a mission driven prover is the prover that wins.”



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Dapps and decentralization</h3>



Both Polygon and zkSync have major DeFi projects planning to deploy on their respective zkEVMs, such as Uniswap, Aave, Curve and Chainlink.



In fact, Matter Labs says it has received commitments from more than 150 projects for its “Full Alpha Launch,” planned to coincide with the February 2023 ETH Denver conference, making it the “largest in history” for any layer-2 blockchain.



The company is incorporated in the Cayman Islands, <a href="https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/matter-labs" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">per Crunchbase</a>, with co-founders <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/gluchowski/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Alex Gluchowski</a> and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandr-vlasov-4863404a/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Alexandr Vlasov</a> located in Dubai, UAE, and Montreal, Canada, respectively.



While some rollup projects have issued a token as part of their rollout — such as <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/tag/optimism/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Optimism</a> (OP) and, most recently, <a href="https://medium.com/starkware/starknet-token-is-deployed-on-ethereum-f27f0000b00c" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">StarkWare&#8217;s Starknet (STRK)</a> — zkSync does not, and Newcomb said that among all Ethereum L-2s they will likely be the last to have a token.



“Decentralization” is on the team’s <a href="https://blog.matter-labs.io/baby-alpha-has-arrived-5b10798bc623" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">roadmap</a> for 2023, but they have no plans to follow others’ approach by launching a DAO or foundation, he said.



EVM-compatibility in a ZK-rollup is seen as a breakthrough technology thanks to the network effects of Ethereum — things like dapps, wallets, developer tooling, infrastructure — and one that was expected to take years to develop. Optimistic rollups, led by Arbitrum and Optimism have been <a href="https://medium.com/cortexlabs/wtf-is-zk-rollup-b7b8c7224700">viewed</a> by developers as a stepping stone. But <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/news/polygon-and-matter-labs-compete-on-zkevm-rollups/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">competing teams</a> and years of research have accelerated the timeline to the point that we now have two ZK-based EVM implementations just months away from being live and ready for ordinary users.



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