- Plonky3 from Polygon (MATIC) is now production ready.
- The new verification system toolkit is expected to bring even greater innovation in the ZK field.
- Succinct Labs’ SP1 validator fully demonstrates the toolkit’s transformative potential.
As blockchain adoption grows, networks like Ethereum face the need to scale, which has led to advancements in several areas of cryptography. Among the teams moving the needle on Ethereum scalability is Polygon (MATIC) Labs, the developer of the Ethereum scaling network.
In recent years, the team has been pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with the technology, supporting a zero-knowledge approach to scalability that promises to deliver greater scalability while also improving security and privacy.
In a recent example, the company has released the production readiness of Plonky3, an evolution of the ZK validation system. Plonky3 promises to open up new ZK virtual machine use cases and experiences by providing developers with unprecedented flexibility.
Plonky3 from Polygon (MATIC) is “less opinionated”
Polygon (MATIC) Labs has taken another step towards accelerating the adoption of ZK solutions. On Tuesday, July 16, the team announced that Plonky3 is now production-ready and available under the MIT/Apache open source license.
Plonky3 is intended to improve upon Polygon (MATIC)’s widely adopted Plonky2 proof system. However, unlike Plonky2, Plonky3 is marketed as a toolkit rather than a proof system. This change comes as Plonky3 goes beyond providing an efficient proof system to providing a set of tools that developers can use to curate their own proof system experience for their unique use cases, which Polygon (MATIC) Labs describes as “less opinionated.”
For the uninitiated, proof systems are central to the operation of ZK rollups. This is because these rollups rely on cryptographic proofs (provable mathematical summaries of work), which are generated by the proof system to verify transactions without revealing details. The design of these systems can affect things like speed and cost.
While this design has been modified from Plonky2, Polygon (MATIC) Labs says that with Plonky3, developers will have a wider range of features to choose from to optimize for speed or cost, depending on their desired use case. Polygon intends that this greater flexibility will drive greater innovation in the ZK space, which is fully demonstrated in Succinct Labs’ SP1 zkVM solution.
Polygon (MATIC) Plonky3 is already very popular
Although Polygon (MATIC) Labs only recently announced Plonky3 as production-ready, the proof system is already in use by several projects, including one of the toolkit’s contributors, Succinct Labs, which has built an SP1 zkVM that leverages Plonky3 to allow developers to generate proofs for a variety of consensus mechanisms.
The features of SP1 are a natural fit for AggLayer, an interoperability solution that Polygon (MATIC) Labs is developing in collaboration with several industry-leading teams to support as many virtual machines as possible. zkVM allows non-ZK chains to plug into AggLayer to share liquidity with other chains and settle transactions on Ethereum, furthering Polygon’s goal of a multi-chain ecosystem.
At the same time, Polygon (MATIC) Labs leverages SP1 to secure AggLayer by generating proof of consensus for connected chains that validate transactions before they are processed via the integrated bridge.
On the other side
- It’s not yet known whether Plonky3 will be as widely adopted as Plonky2.
Why this matters
Despite its security and privacy potential, many projects have avoided the ZK approach due to its perceived complexity. Polygon’s Plonky3 is another developer toolkit that promises to change this story.
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How TON-based Layer 2 Enhances Polygon’s (MATIC) Connectivity Dream
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