Polygon eyes mainnet beta release for zkEVM Layer 2 next month

Polygon is planning to release a new Layer 2 scaling solution, zkEVM, in a mainnet phase on Mar. 27.

zkEVM will be a zero-knowledge or ZK-Rollup that performs off-chain computations on a secondary layer for faster and cheaper transactions while prioritizing security. The aim is to expand the Ethereum network's scaling capabilities further.

Polygon claims its zkEVM will be equivalent to Ethereum's Virtual Machine, which means that the network is expected to support the same code as Ethereum. Due to this factor, developers will be able to onboard apps from Ethereum and use them on Polygon's zkEVM network without making significant changes.

"Polygon zkEVM is the gold standard for EVM-equivalence, having passed 100% of the Ethereum test vectors that apply to a zkEVM. Developers can copy-paste code that works on Ethereum and use it to build on Polygon zkEVM," the team said in a statement shared with The Block.

Although Layer 2 solutions like Arbitrum and Optimism, which are Optimistic Rollup-based solutions, have seen growth, zero-knowledge Layer 2 solutions currently lack Ethereum compatibility.

zkEVM has been in development for over a year and has gone through two third-party security audits. Over the past year, Polygon zkEVM, Starknet, zkSync, and Scroll have fiercely competed to develop a functioning ZK-based Layer 2 that can support Ethereum apps. None of these have yet released a product for public use. But this could change with the launch of Polygon's zkEVM even though there could be last minute development challenges. In October, Polygon's competitor zkSync released a zkEVM solution but for restricted internal use only.