Polygon, a scaling solution for Ethereum, has announced the launch of its zkEVM mainnet beta, which comes with a million dollar bug bounty. The highly anticipated solution, which is a zero-knowledge rollup (ZK-rollups), aims to boost Ethereum’s throughput by bringing computations and state storage to layer-2, enabling off-chain transactions while only generating minimal data on the Ethereum mainnet. Polygon’s zkEVM is the equivalent of the Ethereum Virtual Machine and aims to allow developers to deploy smart contracts with higher finality and lower transaction costs.
The zero-knowledge rollup technology works by bundling multiple transactions into one batch, reducing the amount of data that needs to be processed and lowering transaction fees. This is achieved by moving most of the work off to sidechains, where the transactions are verified and then “rolled up” into a single transaction that is processed on the Ethereum mainnet. In addition, ZK-rollups provide users with privacy as the transactions are cryptographically secure, allowing only those with the relevant keys to see the details of the transaction.
Polygon’s announcement highlighted that though its new network has undergone two audits there is still the possibility that undetected software bugs could be present in the code. To combat this, Polygon has put up a hefty bug bounty for coders who can find and document critical vulnerabilities, rewarding them up to $1 million.
In a further effort to ensure transparency and developer access, Polygon Labs has released its technology under an AGPL v3 license, fully open-source. This means developers will have the ability to access the repositories, modify, use and distribute the technology as they see fit, and Polygon zkEVM will not be proprietary. As ZK-rollups continue to grow in popularity, the question of how to license ZK software becomes increasingly pressing.
Polygon’s zkEVM represents one of many partnerships that Polygon has initiated in the field of scaling solutions for the Ethereum network. Polygon has partnered with several DeFi protocols such as Aave, Curve and Uniswap to enable faster and cheaper transactions. It has also made a foray into the gaming world, partnering with Atari to help develop the blockchain-based Atari Token. Polygon’s objective is to enable Ethereum to become a more efficient network, capable of scaling to meet the demands it faces today and in the future.
Polygon’s latest announcement is significant for developers as it offers them an opportunity to explore the technology, which will be useful in building more efficient applications on the Ethereum network. Additionally, the bug bounty incentivizes coders to thoroughly examine the network for any faults, increasing the overall security and reliability of the technology. Overall, Polygon’s launch of zkEVM beta represents an important milestone in the development of Ethereum’s ZK-rollups, and it will be exciting to see the future impact of this technology on Ethereum’s scalability.
