zkSync head of product: Ethereum learning to scale will be like 'coming out of Plato's cave'

Episode 93 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block's Tim Copeland, VP of Research Larry Cermak and Matter Labs' Chief Product Officer Steve Newcomb.

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For the final installment of this three-part Ethereum Merge special edition of The Scoop, we take a closer look at zero-knowledge (ZK) rollups — technology that could enable Ethereum to scale to millions of transactions per second.

There are four main teams working on ZK-rollups: Polygon, Scroll, Starkware, and Matter Labs.

In this episode of The Scoop, Matter Labs Chief Product Officer Steve Newcomb shares what he believes to be the key ingredients of a good ZK-rollup, and why he believes scaling solutions will herald a new wave of innovation.

According to Newcomb, a paradigm shift will occur once Ethereum successfully scales:

“Once Ethereum can scale — and truly scale — it's kind of like coming out of Plato's cave and seeing the rest of the world, and seeing these use cases we could have never even predicted.”

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has stated he believes ZK-rollups will be the main layer-2 scaling solution in the future, largely because of the speed at which users can move funds between mainnet and the layer-2.

Newcomb also believes that ZK-rollups are “going to be the end game for scaling,” although he also stipulates that a good ZK-rollup should meet the following requirements:

“These five ingredients — having a generalized ZK-rollup, being EVM compatible, working with solidity, being truly open sourced, being correctly decentralized, and having good tokenomics — these are the key ingredients of what makes a good ZK-rollup a ZK-rollup.”

During this episode, Cermak, Copeland, and Newcomb also discuss:

• How zkSync compares to other L2 scaling solutions
• Why ‘Layer 3s’ will lead to a “starfield of 10x moments”
• How ZK-rollups could eliminate non-native bridges

This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Tron, Chainalysis & IWC Schaffhausen

About Tron
TRON is dedicated to accelerating the decentralization of the internet via blockchain technology and decentralized applications (dApps). Founded in September 2017 by H.E. Justin Sun, the TRON network has continued to deliver impressive achievements since MainNet launch in May 2018. July 2018 also marked the ecosystem integration of BitTorrent, a pioneer in decentralized Web3 services boasting over 100 million monthly active users. The TRON network completed full decentralization in December 2021 and is now a community-governed DAO. | TRONDAO | Twitter | Discord |

About Chainalysis
Chainalysis is the leading blockchain data platform. We provide data, software, services, and research to government agencies, exchanges, financial institutions, and insurance and cybersecurity companies in over 60 countries. Backed by Accel, Addition, Benchmark, Coatue, Paradigm, Ribbit, and other leading firms in venture capital, Chainalysis builds trust in blockchains to promote more financial freedom with less risk. For more information, visit www.chainalysis.com.

About IWC Schaffhausen
IWC Schaffhausen is a Swiss luxury watch manufacturer based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Known for its unique engineering approach to watchmaking, IWC combines the best of human craftsmanship and creativity with cutting-edge technology and processes. With collections like the Portugieser and the Pilot’s Watches, the brand covers the whole spectrum from elegant timepieces to sports watches. For more information, visit IWC.com.