Another strong contender has arrived in the Ethereum L2 game: produced by the parent company of the Fox Wallet, zkSync is one of the strongest competitors.

Another Ethereum L2 competitor, zkSync, has emerged as a strong contender, produced by the parent company of Fox Wallet.

In the second half of 2022, the concept of Layer2 exploded. With dozens of Rollup Layer2 solutions, major cryptocurrency companies such as Coinbase and ConsenSys began deploying native Layer2 networks to compete.

Metamask, a ConsenSys subsidiary, had over 30 million monthly active users in 2022, making it the leading Ethereum wallet, while its blockchain development platform, Infura, has over 400,000 registered developers and can handle over 8.5 billion blockchain network requests per day. Linea, a zkEVM project created by Consensys, will also be a strong competitor in the Ethereum Layer2 space thanks to network effects.

Currently, ConsenSys is launching a loyalty program called “Linea Voyage” to encourage early adopters to use the public testnet. However, what is Linea and what advantages does it have compared to other popular Layer2 projects? Let’s start with the giant behind Linea, ConsenSys.

01 What is ConsenSys?

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ConsenSys is a blockchain software company best known for creating the MetaMask self-custody wallet in the crypto industry.

Founded by Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin in 2014, ConsenSys has been dedicated to developing the Ethereum network ecosystem and has developed many Ethereum development tools and related applications since 2016.

In addition, ConsenSys provides consulting services to global enterprises such as Microsoft and Shell to help them successfully implement blockchain solutions in their respective industries.

So far, ConsenSys has raised $726 million through multiple rounds of financing from venture capital and global investors such as SoftBank and Temasek. It is currently valued at $7 billion.

However, user experience in the crypto industry is still poor, even for protocols with high TVL. Just look at the interfaces of these protocols, and you’ll understand why ordinary users don’t want to use DeFi projects. For example, the Curve Finance interface below.

Source: Curve Finance

Good UX/UI is the foundation for ensuring mass adoption of Web3. ConsenSys believes that seamless interaction is essential for ensuring “safe, error-free user interaction.”

To tackle this issue, they believe that MetaMask must take measures to minimize fraud to the greatest degree possible. They do this by helping users scan for malicious activity on websites, adding extra confirmation windows before signing transactions, and partnering with anti-phishing companies.

However, they don’t stop there.

Additionally, with the influx of Web2 companies into the crypto space, they want to establish a resource that can be accessed anytime, anywhere. With a focus on self-service, user experience will be taken even further in Web3.0.

To address this, ConenSys launched MetaMask Institutional (MMI) in February 2021, “serving a wide range of cryptocurrency funds, market makers, and now DAOs who have been watching DeFi closely.”

With “hundreds of organizations” joining, MMI has received positive feedback and helps institutions track their investment portfolios, as well as track NFTs.

02 What is Linea?

Linea is one of several zkEVM solutions seeking to combine the security and performance of zkProofs with full EVM compatibility, which Consensys opened to public testnet on March 28, 2023.

Linea is designed to be highly composable, flexible, and scalable. Developers can natively integrate dApps on Linea with Consensys infrastructure and quickly join the testnet via the MetaMask extension.

When Linea launched its private testnet earlier this year in January, it processed 1.5 million transactions in the first few weeks after launch.

03 Linea vs other Zk Layer2s

While Ethereum’s Layer2 scaling ecosystem is still largely dominated by OP-rollup solutions such as Arbitrum and Optimism, several zkEVM projects have achieved key development milestones.

Matter Labs and Polygon released zkEVM Era Mainnet Alpha and zkEVM Mainnet Beta respectively on March 24 and March 27. This was followed closely by Linea’s release on March 28.

While zkEVM projects may be the early leaders in the short term, they are likely to compete on EVM equivalency in the long run.

In short, EVM equivalency refers to the ability for developers to copy and paste dApp code between EVM-equivalent rollups with minimal reengineering.

On-chain analytics show a significant increase in the number of deposit addresses and transactions in the days surrounding the launches of Linea, zkSync Era, and Polygon zkEVM mainnets.

It is clear that users are bridging to their respective mainnets in hopes of getting potential airdrops.

Linea deposit address

zkSync deposit address

Polygon depositors

04 Summary

With various zkEVM projects already launched or planned to launch their own mainnets in 2023, the battle for Ethereum scaling is heating up.

However, it should be noted that zkEVM technology is still in its early stages.

There are still areas of concern in the development of zkEVM, including its hardware design, decentralized sequencer, and token economics.

Nevertheless, this is still a very tense moment for zkEVM projects, as they not only compete with each other, but also seek to gain dominance and market share from their optimistic rollup peers.

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