Copying code from zkSync? Polygon Zero and Matter Labs engage in a remote confrontation.

Polygon Zero confronts Matter Labs over code copying from zkSync.

The Polygon Zero team, a zero-knowledge proof team under Polygon, publicly criticized zkSync, accusing it of unauthorized copying of Polygon’s open-source code and disseminating misleading statements.

The drama between these two top Layer 2 teams in the ZK field has attracted widespread attention in the industry.

In an article titled “Protecting the Spirit of Open Source,” Polygon Zero accused the Matter Labs team, the developers of zkSync, of using a significant amount of code from the Plonky 2 proof system in their recent release of the Boojum library, which was developed by Polygon Labs.

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Polygon Zero stated that although Plonky 2 is open-source, Matter Labs did not provide proper attribution. In addition, Polygon Zero accused Matter Labs of making misleading claims about the performance comparison between Plonky 2 and Boojum, with the founder of Matter Labs claiming that Boojum is more than 10 times faster than Plonky 2.

The Polygon Zero team stated that before being acquired by Polygon Labs, they were a small startup that raised $2 million in seed funding and operated for over two years. Most of the development of Plonky 2 and Starky was done without resources or recognition, and they would not be able to fight back if well-funded competitors reappropriated their work without attribution.

Eli Ben-Sasson, the founder of StarkWare, also joined the debate. They urged Alex Gluchowski, the founder of Matter Labs, to publicly respond to these allegations.

zkSync’s Counterattack

Alex, the founder of Matter Labs, responded immediately, expressing disappointment with these unfounded accusations, and promised to provide a detailed response soon.

In the subsequent formal response letter, Alex strongly denied Polygon Zero’s accusations.

He stated that today’s accusations are baseless, misleading, and come from a highly respected team, which is extremely disappointing.

When zkSync used code from Plonky 2, it already provided clear attribution in its GitHub code repository. If the community can suggest a better method of attribution, zkSync will strongly consider applying it from now on.

He also provided a detailed demonstration of the citation of Plonky 2 and its authors, and insisted that only about 5% of the Boojum code is based on Plonky 2.

Regarding the misleading statements, Alex stated that the whole point of neutral third-party benchmark tests is to achieve fair comparisons, surpass market noise and subtle differences in implementations. If one is not satisfied with the choice or optimization of benchmark test functions (such as SHA 256), why use the code for benchmark testing in the first place and then endorse it?

Alex then attached relevant links as theoretical support for his response.

In response to Alex’s reply, storm from LianGuairadigm agrees, stating that zkSync’s attribution could be better, but it is definitely not plagiarism, at most it can be described as a bit careless.

However, the Chinese community of Manta Network stated that, in fact, this code was created by Brandon, who is in Manta Network.

Comparison of Ecological Development

With the launch of zkSync’s zkEVM mainnet, ZkSync Era, in March 2023, its TVL once rose to 700 million US dollars, compared to the current TVL of only 54 million US dollars for Polygon zkEVM.

ZkSync Era TVL, data source: L 2B EAT

The focus of this debate, Boojum, is a proof system upgrade launched by zkSync Era on July 17, which will assist the network in transitioning to a STARK-supported proof system.

Reference: Protect the Open Source Ethos zkSync Founder’s Response

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