Polygon Sets March Launch Date for zkEVM Mainnet Beta

In the next weeks, specifics of the zkEVM beta network will be disclosed. The release is scheduled on March 27.

Polygon, an Ethereum scaling project, has set March 27 as the launch date for the beta main network of its zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM). In a blog post, Polygon did not define what the beta network would consist of but said that further information will be released in the weeks building up to the March release date, and that network security will be a top focus.

Zero-knowledge (ZK) technology is seen by many as a significant advancement for blockchains and cryptography, with the goal of enhancing transaction speed and decreasing transaction costs.

ZkEVMs are a sort of zero-knowledge (ZK) rollup, a scaling solution that processes transactions quicker on layer 2 and transmits the data back to the mainnet blockchain, in this instance Ethereum. ZK rollups employ “proofs” to demonstrate that a transaction was not faked by releasing merely a piece of information about it.

In October, Polygon launched its zkEVM testnet, which utilises the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) for its ZK rollup. This enables Ethereum developers to migrate their smart contracts from the main blockchain without having to rewrite them in a separate programming language.

According to the blog post, over 75,000 ZK proofs and 5,000 smart contracts have been implemented since the testnet went live.

In an interview with CoinDesk last week, the co-founder of Polygon, Mihailo Bjelic, said that the blockchain is also investigating methods to include ZK technology into its primary chain, the Polygon POS chain.

Sandeep Nailwal, a co-founder of Polygon, said in an email to CoinDesk, “Polygon zkEVM Mainnet is poised to be the first completely EVM comparable ZK rollup to reach mainnet. This marks a big step towards scaling Ethereum and delivering Web3 to the public.” The countdown has begun.

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