"Our ultimate goal is to unify the fragmented liquidity of multiple ecosystems."

Author: Kevin Liu, ZKM Co-Founder and CEO

Translation: Coolman, Foresight News

In his book "The Cold Start Problem," Andrew Chen (a16z) defines network effects as a phenomenon where the value of a product is positively correlated with the number of users. As the founder of an infrastructure project, we are committed to building a universal zkVM to connect the liquidity between blockchains, and I am also continuously considering how to achieve network effects for underlying infrastructure projects.

2B or 2C?

Many investors have asked me the same question - how does zkVM capture value? Considering that there are many different types of zkVM in the market, and all code will eventually be open source, exploring this question makes sense for an infrastructure project.

Like peers such as RISC Zero, SP1, and Jolt, ZKM has made significant progress in the past year, with performance benchmarks continuously improving. One major difference is that RISC Zero and SP1 mainly target Rust, while ZKM provides native support for Golang. For a project, especially an infrastructure project, the choice between Rust and Golang is always a dilemma for developers. Many application chains have identified Golang as their preferred language due to its developer-friendly nature and thriving ecosystem. For example, Optimism's mini-geth and Cosmos SDK are two widely used toolkits written in Golang.

ZKM has chosen Golang as its first front-end language, allowing developers to compile their code into MIPS instructions using the original Golang compiler and then ensure its correct execution through ZKM's proof network. According to current CPU benchmarks, a single prover in this network can prove 5.4K instructions per second. Using a GPU can accelerate this by 3-5 times.

Rust, with its strict type system and memory safety design, is being adopted by more and more infrastructure projects, and the scale of MIPS instructions generated by Rust for the same logic is about 6-8 times that of Golang. Nevertheless, ZKM's roadmap also includes future support for Rust.

Due to the reliance on a powerful technical stack, many partners have already shown the need and interest in collaborating with zkVM. However, to achieve network effects, a project needs not only excellent technology but also continuous interaction with potential partners in business development and encouragement for them to build projects on the technical stack. The success of our zkVM will depend on its usage and adoption. In short, the success of any project depends on the strength of its entire ecosystem.

Nevertheless, the key to infrastructure projects realizing network value lies in differentiation. Imagine, if many participants are using similar strategies, how can a project differentiate itself and capture its own value?

Optimism has set a precedent for research. If you study the successful path of the OP technical stack, you will find that the OP technical stack was not perfect from the beginning - SuperChain's adoption was not immediate. Instead, it was the success of Optimism L2 that drove the adoption of the OP technical stack and attracted many projects to choose SuperChain to build projects for future value capture. In the Web3 world, you need to first establish a killer use case. This killer use case not only serves as a strong demonstration of your technology but also combines factors such as product-market fit, community engagement, marketing strategy, and token economics, determining the success or failure of the project.

In this competitive market, I do not believe there is a way to prevent competitors from dividing market share. On the contrary, competition is always dynamic, and the key to success lies in the flexibility and adaptability of the technical stack.

Therefore, ZKM always insists on placing "flexibility" and "adaptability" at the core of the project and chooses to establish unique use cases to drive the adoption of the technical stack.

Where to start?

ZKM has released the Entangled Rollup LightPaper, which details the interoperability mechanism used by ZKM to connect fragmented liquidity between Ethereum Layer 1 and Layer 2 networks. As of now, the Entangled Rollup architecture has successfully supported verification between Ethereum Layer 1 and Layer 2 networks. So, which network should be connected next?

This network should be able to provide significant value and have a strong demand for connectivity with other ecosystems. For a network that is already mature and influential, there are even more bonus points.

Considering the above criteria, the answer to the question is obvious: Bitcoin.

The Bitcoin network does indeed face a major challenge, which is the lack of support for smart contracts. However, ZKM's Entangled Rollup aims to aggregate states to the ZKM network and relay proof states to other ecosystems - we will also use the same method to promote the expansion of the Bitcoin network. From the perspective of Bitcoin, in this initial stage, the role of the ZKM network is similar to Bitcoin Layer 2.

How will zkVM-driven BTC Layer2 be different?

According to L2.watch reports, there are already over 100 BTC L2s that have been launched or are about to be released. So how will our solution stand out?

Since the entire Entangled Rollup framework and the entire zkVM level will provide support for BTC Layer2, we can offer native security and sustainable income as key features of this network.

1. Native Security

When I talk to Bitcoin holders and miners, almost everyone asks me the same question: how can I ensure the security of my assets?

The security of BTC Layer2 can be determined by two factors. First, Layer 1 assets should be controlled by BTC's native multi-signature scripts, so as long as there is an active honest party, any malicious actor cannot unlock the assets they have mortgaged or deposited. Secondly, the final transaction confirmation of Layer 2 needs to inherit BTC's security standards, requiring decentralized orderers and L2 transaction execution to be verified by BTC scripts.

ZKM introduces a mechanism called the Optimistic Challenge Process (OCP) to meet the above security requirements. When a user's assets are deposited into L2, they will be locked in a pre-signed n-of-n multi-signature script, and the signatories can be any authorized neutral third party or auditor. This script will be activated after the challenge period ends. During the challenge phase, the signatories need to pre-sign a transaction containing the challenge script and asset script. Subsequently, the challenger needs to pay UTXO to initiate the challenge and request the operator to provide transaction calculation tracking to attempt to enable the commitment and activate the asset script.

If the commitment fails to be successfully enabled, the verifier will receive all the assets after the challenge period ends; otherwise, the signatory will receive the assets.

The tracking execution is achieved through TapTree - each leaf node of TapTree represents an intermediate value, and each intermediate value needs to be used once for signature calculation with the previous value as input. Through this method, BTC scripts can directly execute signature calculations and complete on-chain asset verification.

Therefore, OCP can provide native security for any off-chain computation, ensuring that Layer2 transactions always remain in the orderer network.

2. Sustainable Income

In terms of income, most Bitcoin holders are more inclined to seek sustainable and stable income rather than short-term points or airdrop rewards. For ZKM BTC L2, introducing decentralized orderers into the framework to batch process L2 transactions provides inherent native security. Therefore, these orderer nodes (whitelisted by BTC) should be rewarded for their contributions.

ZKM reserves 40% of its token supply for mining pools, specifically for orderer node mining, liquidity staking mining, and proof network mining, ensuring that orderer nodes not only receive gas income from transaction processing but also receive sustainable and stable income from mining pools. Additionally, since orderer nodes are the fastest entities for processing Layer2 batch transactions, there are potential MEV opportunities. Therefore, the income and benefits of ZKM BTC L2 belong to all network participants, including node operators, stakers, and users. In addition, BTC L1 miners will also benefit from submitting Layer2 transactions to Layer1.

About the future

Our ultimate goal is to unify the fragmented liquidity of multiple ecosystems. First, we will establish connections between the Ethereum and Bitcoin networks, and the next goal will include other major networks such as Cosmos and Ton.

I believe that ZKM is exploring a fundamental thinking and operating mode for an underlying infrastructure project. There may be some "growing pains" on this path, but we will learn from experience and provide the best guidance within our capabilities.

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