To Ethereum, With Love: Announcing Polygon zkEVM Mainnet Beta on March 27th

February 14, 2023
Polygon Solutions
Image source: Dribbble

When the Polygon zkEVM Testnet went live last year, Polygon Labs gave the world the first glimpse of seamless scaling for Ethereum. As the leading EVM-equivalent zkEVM, Polygon zkEVM has been groundbreaking from the beginning. Now it’s time to truly start the revolution to unlock mass adoption and the full potential of Web3.

Polygon Labs is pleased to announce the launch of Polygon zkEVM Mainnet Beta. March 27, the journey to the future begins.

The Long, Winding Road to Mainnet Beta

Here are some of the milestones Polygon zkEVM has hit along the road to Mainnet Beta:

✅ Over 84,000 wallets

✅ Over 300,000 blocks produced

✅ Over 75,000 ZK proofs generated

✅ Over 5,000 smart contracts deployed

✅ Two public, third-party audits

✅ Six months of battle-testing on public testnets

✅ Passed 100% of Ethereum test vectors that apply to a zkEVM

✅ Proof generation time down to almost two minutes

✅ Cost for generating a proof for a large batch of transactions down to about $0.06

The Polygon zkEVM Testnets have brought unprecedented interest and growth from across the entire ecosystem. Along the way, Polygon zkEVM has only gotten better – faster, cheaper, and more secure.

The Polygon Labs team is proud of the level of adoption to date. Without you–the members of the Polygon and Ethereum communities who have been willing to venture to the frontiers of ZK innovation–Polygon zkEVM wouldn’t be ready for Mainnet Beta.

Polygon zkEVM has been battle-tested through actual testnet usage and also through an exhaustive process of auditing. Over the next few weeks, Polygon Labs will be releasing more details about Mainnet Beta. Security is the highest priority, which is why Polygon zkEVM has been run through a gauntlet of tests and audits. Users and devs can expect full transparency about the security measures that will protect the Ethereum community during Mainnet Beta.

Ethereum, We Complete You

The conventional wisdom has been that an EVM-equivalent zkEVM wouldn’t exist for many years. In the meantime, the Ethereum community would have to compromise, with withdrawal delays and fraud proofs, with entirely new languages designed for ZK rollups, or with special compilers to a “compatible” zkEVM lacking support for existing Ethereum developer tools.

True EVM-equivalence means that Ethereum can be scaled without resorting to half-measures. The best way to scale Ethereum is to preserve the existing Ethereum ecosystem: code, tooling, and infrastructure needs to just work. And that’s what Polygon zkEVM is aiming to achieve.

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 without having to change a thing–all Ethereum tooling works seamlessly with Polygon zkEVM. That’s frictionless scaling.

Polygon zkEVM also doesn’t sacrifice performance for the sake of EVM-equivalence. In fact, it’s only getting cheaper and faster to use. Proof times for a batch of hundreds of transactions are rapidly nearing two minutes, with increased throughput expected in the near future. It’s important to note that proof times dictate latency, not scalability, because Polygon zkEVM can generate proofs in parallel, enabling high throughput with transactions settling on L1 in just a few minutes.

Proof costs for a similarly large batch of transactions are down to about $0.06 (less than $0.001 for a simple transfer), making Polygon zkEVM a seamless, secure and affordable way to access everything you love about Ethereum.

And most importantly of all, Polygon zkEVM was built with love!

Unifying Polygon

Polygon zkEVM Mainnet Beta is a huge leap for both Polygon and Ethereum. But the most exciting thing is that this is only the beginning. The day is fast approaching when ZK innovations will begin to revolutionize every aspect of the Polygon ecosystem.

Expect more announcements soon. Polygon zkEVM Mainnet Beta is a momentous occasion, but it’s not the only paradigm shift the Ethereum community will see within the Polygon ecosystem. Polygon’s ZK revolution is only beginning…

Learn how to get started with Polygon zkEVM in three easy steps, stop by the Polygon ZK Forum, and make sure to check out the Polygon blog and tune in to Polygon social channels for the latest from the Polygon ecosystem and all things ZK.

Together, we can build an equitable future for all through mass adoption of Web3!

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