What Are Zero Knowledge Rollups? How Do They Scale Ethereum?

• These rollups work on-chain and submit validity proof on the mainnet.
• These rollups are fast, secure, and more private.

Zero-Knowledge rollups are called zero-knowledge because they can verify transactions on the chain, and they do not have any information about the transactions. They are cryptographic proofs. They are used to verify something without revealing any information related to it. This ensures the security of the transactions and that no unwanted information is released. Hence these are private as well as secure. 

What is the meaning of Zero-Knowledge rollups?

These rollups work off-chain because they bundle transactions into batches. This reduces the amount of data that needs to be entered on the Ethereum main chain while reducing network congestion on the network. This makes the transaction processing faster.

A summary of the transactions in batches is sent instead of sending them individually. After processing the transactions, these rollups make a validity proof which is used to ensure the correctness of the transactions. The functioning of these rollups is maintained by the smart contracts deployed on the Ethereum blockchain. 

The validity proof that the zero rollups proposed for the transactions are proposed to ensure that the changes are made in the transactions, and hence this ensures that all the remaining transactions are secure. 

ZK – rollups are also faster as there is no delay while moving transactions from the ZK-rollups to the Ethereum chain. Once the ZK-rollup contract verifies the validity proof, it is very easy for the rollup to move the transactions from the rollup to the Ethereum main chain. This is the main reason they are really faster. 

Types of ZK rollups

The ZK rollups can be differentiated on the basis of their functioning. The most common ZK rollup types include.

• Proof System

These are the types of rollups that are used to verify the transactions on the main chain of Ethereum. Different types of proof systems have different types of properties, and these properties are proof size, verification time, prover time, and even trusted setup. The most common example of the proof system rollups is ZK – SNARKS and ZK-STARKS. 

• Circuit Design

These rollups perform and execute transactions on the layer 2 blockchain and not on the main chain. Different types of circuit design offer different types of properties. Examples of the different rollups using different circuit designs are zkSync and StarkWare. 

• Data Availability Solutions

Different types of rollups use different types of data availability of the block. Different data availability has different pros and cons. Examples of the different data availability solutions are ZkSync and StarkWare.

Benefits of using ZK- rollups

• High Transaction Speed

On the main chain, users need to wait for a longer time for their transaction processing. This time depends on the network congestion. Sometimes they even need to wait for 2 – 3 minutes to process a single transaction. At the same time, the transactions can be processed instantly by ZK rollups. 

• Lower Gas Fees

Zk-Rollups significantly decrease gas costs. By reducing congestion on the main chain. They not only increase the transaction speed but also decrease the gas cost. As on the Ethereum network, the gas fees are decided on the basis of network congestion. These rollups increase the efficiency of the Ethereum network and decrease the gas cost.