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Analyzing and Benchmarking ZK-Rollups

Authors Stefanos Chaliasos, Itamar Reif, Adrià Torralba-Agell, Jens Ernstberger, Assimakis Kattis, Benjamin Livshits

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Subject Classification

ACM Subject Classification
  • Security and privacy → Cryptography
Keywords
  • Zero-Knowledge Proofs
  • ZK-Rollups
  • Benchmarking
  • Blockchain Scalability

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Abstract

As blockchain technology continues to transform the realm of digital transactions, scalability has emerged as a critical issue. This challenge has spurred the creation of innovative solutions, particularly Layer 2 scalability techniques like rollups. Among these, ZK-Rollups are notable for employing Zero-Knowledge Proofs to facilitate prompt on-chain transaction verification, thereby improving scalability and efficiency without sacrificing security. Nevertheless, the intrinsic complexity of ZK-Rollups has hindered an exhaustive evaluation of their efficiency, economic impact, and performance.
This paper offers a theoretical and empirical examination aimed at comprehending and evaluating ZK-Rollups, with particular attention to ZK-EVMs. We conduct a qualitative analysis to break down the costs linked to ZK-Rollups and scrutinize the design choices of well-known implementations. Confronting the inherent difficulties in benchmarking such intricate systems, we introduce a systematic methodology for their assessment, applying our method to two prominent ZK-Rollups: Polygon zkEVM and zkSync Era. Our research provides initial findings that illuminate trade-offs and areas for enhancement in ZK-Rollup implementations, delivering valuable insights for future research, development, and deployment of these systems.

Cite As Get BibTex

Stefanos Chaliasos, Itamar Reif, Adrià Torralba-Agell, Jens Ernstberger, Assimakis Kattis, and Benjamin Livshits. Analyzing and Benchmarking ZK-Rollups. In 6th Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2024). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 316, pp. 6:1-6:24, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2024) https://doi.org/10.4230/LIPIcs.AFT.2024.6

Author Details

Stefanos Chaliasos
  • Imperial College London, UK
Itamar Reif
  • Astria, New York, NY, USA
Adrià Torralba-Agell
  • Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, San Martí, Spain
Jens Ernstberger
  • Technische Universität München, Germany
Assimakis Kattis
  • Athens, Greece
Benjamin Livshits
  • Imperial College London, UK
  • Matter Labs, London, UK

Funding

We thank the Ethereum Foundation and The Latest in DeFi Research (TLDR) program, funded by the Uniswap Foundation, for supporting this work.
  • Torralba-Agell, Adrià: Project PID2021-125962OB-C31 SECURING/CYBER, funded by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, la Agencia Estatal de Investigación and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

Acknowledgements

We thank Ramon Canales, Emil Luta, Roman Brodetski, Robert Remen, Fractasy Romero, Ignasi Ramos, Héctor Masip Ardevol, and Carlos Matallana for their insightful feedback and help with technical issues. We also thank Cristina Pérez-Solà for proofreading this manuscript and supervising Adrià Torralba-Agell while working on this project.

Supplementary Materials

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