SKALE Announces ZK Solution "Levitation"

The SKALE Network is set to receive a major upgrade, thanks to a new zero-knowledge initiative.

Scaling solutions based on zero-knowledge (ZK) rollups have captured the attention of both Ethereum developers and the community, because they offer significant benefits over optimistic rollups-based approaches to scaling mainnet transaction capacity. SKALE's Levitation Protocol is a fully decentralized ZK scaling solution that will allow seamless integration with the SKALE Network, with rollup connectivity back to the Ethereum Mainnet. The initiative will offer two different ways to access the benefits of ZK rollups.

About ZK Rollups

The popularity of Ethereum has led to surging gas costs, as a growing community of users compete for limited block space. A number of scaling solutions are now available to relieve Ethereum mainnet of some of this burden, with the most popular protocols to date being based on "optimistic" rollups.

Optimistic rollups enable L2 solutions that are secured by L1, but that bundle or "roll up" lots of transactions and submit them to the network together, allowing gas costs to be shared. Leading platforms Optimism and Arbitrum both use this approach.

ZK rollups offer a similar approach of bundling transactions, but the use of zero-knowledge proofs enables greater security, privacy, and efficiency than optimistic rollups. However, ZK rollups present a greater engineering challenge, and to date there have been no ZK rollups-based solutions that offer the full range of functionality provided by platforms using optimistic rollups. That is now starting to change, as the first full ZK-EVM solutions are being trialed and launched.

"Levitation": ZK On SKALE

SKALE's new proposal will see the benefits of ZK rollups integrated with its already world class blockchain network. Developers and users will have two options to choose from.

Existing dApp chains will continue to feature fast, gas-free transactions as standard, but configurable L2 ZK solutions will also be available.

The second strand of the proposal will see the launch of a new SKALE Chain, called SKALE G (short for Ganymede, Jupiter's largest moon, as well as the largest moon in the solar system). This "L1 Megachain" will feature L2 ZK hooks back to Ethereum, allowing developers to harness the power of ZK technology while maintaining a seamless connection to the Ethereum network.

SKALE's blog cites three main advantages of Levitation:

1. Decentralization: Existing ZKRs, when executed on Levitation, become decentralized, without requiring any modifications to the underlying software.
2. Interoperability and Modularity: Levitation turns existing ZKRs into modules that interact with each other seamlessly.
3. Common security: Multiple ZKRs can run in a common environment of a single Levitation-enabled chain. This enables a common ledger of transactions and eases the interaction of rollups.

One of the key differences between SKALE's Levitation Protocol and other ZK solutions is the level of decentralization provided. SKALE will use a decentralized sequencer, in the form of a set of smart contracts deployed to a SKALE Chain, to submit transactions back to mainnet—removing a potential single point of failure that exists in other ZK solutions.

Overall, the Levitation Protocol will combine the benefits the SKALE Network offers natively with those provided by ZK rollups, offering a high degree of scalability along with exceptional decentralization, modularity, and strong security.

Find out more about the Levitation Protocol on the SKALE blog.

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