Taiko: The Type-1 zkEVM valued by Sequoia China

Original: 《Taiko: A New zkEVM on the Block》

Author: umede.eth

Compiled by: jk, Odaily Planet Daily

Editor’s Note: According to the crypto data platform RootData, on June 8, the Ethereum Layer 2 network based on zkRollup, Taiko, completed a total of $22 million in two rounds of seed funding. The first round raised $10 million, led by Sequoia China, and ended in the third quarter of 2022. The recent second round raised $12 million, led by Generative Ventures.

Disclaimer: The following does not represent the views of Odaily Planet Daily and does not constitute investment advice.

If you have been paying a little attention to the developments in the zero-knowledge proof Ethereum space, you may have heard of names like Polygon, Starkware, Scroll, and zkSync.

In fact, you may not only have heard of them but also seen them arguing on Twitter about various issues: What is the true definition of zkEVM? Who has ever/ is currently/ will first deploy zkEVM on the Ethereum mainnet? Who is better at marketing, and other important and less important questions.

Regardless of your views on their debates, all these projects are working hard to push the scalability of Ethereum.

However, a new player is emerging, relatively low-key but as viable as the others. This new player is Taiko—an zkEVM aimed at being fully decentralized and equivalent to Ethereum. As far as I know, no other zkEVM team is attempting to achieve this feat, so I believe Taiko deserves special attention.

Let’s take a look at what Taiko is all about.

1. Background

Taiko (meaning "drum" in Japanese) was founded in early 2022 by Daniel Wang, Brecht Devos, and other well-known figures in the field. Before founding Taiko, these two worked at Loopring, which was the first zero-knowledge rollup deployed on Ethereum.

I think it is important to quickly understand the role Loopring played in the founding and development of Taiko. Initially, the zkEVM that Taiko was building had to be part of Loopring's efforts to promote zero-knowledge proof-driven Ethereum to the masses.

However, at some point during the development phase, Wang and his team realized that confusing the two could cause significant confusion, as Loopring is an application-specific scaling solution, while Taiko aims to be a general-purpose scaling solution. Thus, Taiko separated from Loopring and developed independently.

Taiko currently consists of about 20 employees from countries including Turkey, Austria, Barbados, China, India, the United States, Canada, and Ukraine.

2. Technical Details

1. Type-1 zkEVM

The main feature that distinguishes Taiko from its competitors (or more accurately, peers) is its goal to become a Type-1 zkEVM. A Type-1 zkEVM strives for complete equivalence with Ethereum, meaning it does not make any changes to the Ethereum system to facilitate easier generation of zero-knowledge proofs.

Before diving deeper, it is important to note that Taiko's zkEVM is a branch of the Privacy and Scaling Explorations (PSE) team's community efforts. Taiko uses this branch to test new things and then contributes to the PSE's zkEVM so that any project developing a Type-1 zkEVM (which currently does not exist) can benefit from this research.

Type-1 zkEVM aims to be fully compatible with Ethereum. In the case of Taiko, it intends to be equivalent at the opcode level, meaning that hash functions, precompiled contracts, transactions, state trees, and other consistency logic will not be altered. However, as noted in Taiko's white paper, the protocol currently does disable certain Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs), but this will change over time.

Being equivalent to Ethereum brings many benefits to developers. For example, developers can seamlessly migrate their smart contracts and decentralized applications (dApps) to Taiko. This is crucial because if a dApp like Uniswap wants to migrate to Taiko, it does not need to make any changes to its protocol. Otherwise, rewriting the code in a programming language different from Solidity or making other changes would immediately introduce multiple risks to the protocol's security and the assets on it.

In addition, in the case of Taiko, compatibility is further enhanced. The Taiko client is based on the battle-tested Ethereum client Go-Ethereum. This means that it is more familiar and easier to use for those who wish to participate. From the end-user perspective, the ability to use Uniswap on Taiko remains consistent, accessible, and user-satisfactory compared to using it on the Ethereum mainnet, and may even improve.

Of course, the pursuit of perfect compatibility requires some trade-offs. The main challenge faced by a Type-1 zkEVM like Taiko is the slower generation of zero-knowledge proofs. Since Ethereum was not designed with the integration of zero-knowledge proofs in mind, many parts of the protocol require extensive computation to generate zero-knowledge proofs.

However, appropriate protocol design can mitigate this issue. Let’s see how Taiko accelerates the generation of zero-knowledge proofs.

2. Accelerating Zero-Knowledge Proof Generation

Taiko accelerates the generation of zero-knowledge proofs in several ways:

All proposed blocks on Taiko L2 are immediately verified as they are deterministic and cannot be revoked. "Deterministic" means that anyone can compute the state of the chain after execution. A L2 block can be considered verified if it passes the intrinsic validity test once submitted to Taiko L1.

Since all Taiko L2 proposed blocks are deterministic, they can be proven in parallel, and proofs can be submitted in any order. For example, Prover #1 can simultaneously verify Block #1, while Prover #2 can simultaneously verify Block #2. This means that only Taiko L1 needs to wait longer to obtain the proof.

All of this contributes to speeding up the generation of zero-knowledge proofs to some extent. For end users, this means instant finality on L2 and faster bridging speeds from L2 to L1.

3. Taiko Protocol

Taiko's zero-knowledge protocol deploys two smart contracts on the Ethereum mainnet (L1) and Taiko L2:

(1) The L1 smart contract is used to propose, prove, and verify L2 blocks.

(2) The L2 smart contract is currently used to prove the invalidity of proposed blocks and for anchoring, which is a way for the protocol to leverage the programmability of the EVM to enforce certain protocol behaviors.

4. zkSNARKs

The Taiko protocol uses zero-knowledge succinct non-interactive arguments of knowledge (zkSNARK) proofs. At least theoretically, zkSNARKs are considered to lack scalability compared to zkSTARKs and require a trusted setup process. However, zkSNARKs are more lightweight than zkSTARKs, resulting in shorter verification times. Additionally, zkSNARKs require less gas, providing cheaper transactions.

To generate zkSNARKs, Taiko uses a globally non-interactive proof system based on Lagrange bases (PLONK). The advantage of PLONK is that it relies on standard cryptography and has smaller proof sizes. However, Taiko is also exploring the possibility of combining PLONK with other proof systems such as Plonky 2, Hyperplonk, and Halo.

The Taiko network consists of three participants:

(1) Proposers build Rollup blocks based on L2 users' transactions and submit them to the Taiko L1 client. They decide which transactions to include in a block and how to order them.

(2) Provers generate zkSNARK proofs to confirm the validity of L2 transactions and blocks. They decide which blocks should be verified on-chain.

(3) Node runners execute transactions from on-chain data to keep the state in sync with the chain. Proposers and provers also run nodes, but those who want to provide other services (like block explorers) also need to run a node.

5. Taiko L2 Nodes

Taiko's L2 nodes fetch transaction data from Ethereum and execute these transactions on Taiko L2. As mentioned earlier, Taiko's L2 nodes are based on Go-Ethereum.

Please read Taiko's white paper for more detailed technical details.

3. Current Progress

Taiko recently launched its first test network, named Snæfellsjökull, after a volcano in western Iceland. Users can test Taiko by bridging between Ethereum A1 and Taiko A1, transferring tokens between different accounts, interacting with contracts, and running proposer nodes.

Snæfellsjökull Volcano. Source: Icelandic Mag.

From a testing perspective, the test network has been a huge success. In just over a week, the Taiko L2 network has processed over 1.6 million transactions, over 650,000 blocks, and 275,000 wallet addresses. It can be said that Snæfellsjökull has erupted.

Source: https://l2 explorer.a 1.taiko.xyz.

The Taiko team plans to gradually phase out Snæfellsjökull in the coming months and replace it with a new test network that will adopt zero-knowledge proof technology. Further test networks will improve upon previous versions and implement a token economic model.

Taiko has not specified when it will launch its mainnet but mentioned that late 2023 or early next year is more likely.

4. Taiko's Beliefs

Although Taiko's technical design is completely different from other zkEVMs in the field, its pursuit is also worth discussing.

Taiko claims to aspire to accessibility, inclusivity, openness, permissionlessness, and decentralization. In fact, it hopes to launch with a completely decentralized set of proposers and provers. This is different from other zkEVMs, which mostly choose to start from a centralized approach and gradually achieve decentralization.

Taiko believes that complete decentralization and pursuing the same goals as Ethereum are necessary conditions to become equivalent to Ethereum. Furthermore, the team intends to launch a DAO at some point in the future. Co-founder Wang has also stated that Taiko hopes to operate as a non-profit organization.

Reading about Taiko's values feels very avant-garde, almost revolutionary. It reminds me of zkSync's mission statement. I hope Taiko can deliver on its promise to become the first fully decentralized Type-1 zkEVM to land on the Ethereum mainnet.

5. Conclusion

Type-1 zkEVM has its pros and cons. But what if its disadvantages can be overlooked in light of the advantages it offers? If Ethereum equivalence, which seems to be the highest standard, combined with existing and potential methods for accelerating zero-knowledge proof generation, truly makes Type-1 zkEVM a long-term winner? There are still many unknowns, but at least Vitalik seems to suggest that Type-1 zkEVMs are the right choice.

As for Taiko, I believe it has found the right position at the right time. 2023 seems to be a year reserved for building. If Taiko achieves its goals and launches its mainnet this year or early next year, it could become one of the big winners in the next adoption cycle.

Taiko clearly stands out, attempting to achieve an extraordinary feat. Whether it can succeed is another question, but based on Wang and his team's achievements at Loopring, the odds seem to be in their favor. If Taiko wins, Ethereum will also be a winner.