Understand the ZK Modular New Star Lumoz in One Article

Author: Biteye Core Contributor Wilson Lee

Editor: Biteye Core Contributor Crush

Community: @BiteyeCN

Introduction

With the rapid penetration of modular blockchains into L2, the maturity of various RaaS tools, and the implementation of the Cancun upgrade, the construction threshold for L2 has been significantly lowered, and technology is no longer the main obstacle to building Rollups.

Moreover, emerging Rollups such as Base, Manta Pacific, and Blast have rapidly risen by constructing Rollups at low cost using existing tools and shifting their project focus to the ecosystem, setting a benchmark for the market. The transformation of traditional applications to L2 and the explosion of various lightweight L2s seem to have become an irreversible trend.

In terms of the technical route of Rollups, there has long been a debate between OP and ZK. Vitalik has repeatedly expressed the view of "short-term OP, long-term ZK," as there are still many technical issues to be resolved regarding ZK-Rollups.

With technological advancements, the infrastructure related to ZK-Rollups has also matured, and Rollups adopting ZK solutions are likely to occupy an important market share in the future L2 boom. Lumoz, as a leading RaaS focused on ZK, has great potential for success in the near future.

Bottlenecks of ZK-Rollup

2.1 Rollup from a Modular Perspective

Readers may already be familiar with the basic principles of OP-Rollup and ZK-Rollup, so here we will revisit Rollups from a modular perspective.

Rollups essentially achieve optimal resource allocation through modular division of labor, allowing different participants to focus on a specific task, thereby improving overall efficiency.

The modular composition of Ethereum can be simply broken down into: Data Availability Layer (DA), Consensus Layer, Settlement Layer, and Execution Layer.

Execution Layer

Provides an execution environment to compute transactions, transforming old states into new states, submitting the new states to the settlement layer, and providing fraud/validity proofs.

The execution layer can further be divided into Sequencer and Prover, where the Sequencer is responsible for computing state transitions, and the Prover is responsible for generating proofs (especially for ZK-Rollups, as the type and overhead of proof generation have certain hardware requirements).

Settlement Layer

Validates the correctness of the state transitions computed by the execution layer. Generally, this is a smart contract deployed on Layer 1, responsible for verifying the computations of the execution layer; the state hash of the verified Rollup block will be recorded on-chain, at which point the block generated by the Rollup achieves finality.

For ZK-Rollups, this contract contains the verification algorithm for the ZK Proof submitted by a specific ZK-Rollup. After the ZK-Rollup completes execution, it submits the state hash and ZKP to the contract, triggering a verification transaction. When the verification passes, the state hash is proven valid, and the block achieves finality.

(Source: https://docs.theradius.xyz/overview/introduction-to-radius)

Consensus Layer

In most cases, the consensus layer is handled by Layer 1. The state hash verified by the consensus layer is recorded on-chain, and the corresponding transaction block on the Rollup gains security protection from Layer 1.

Data Availability Layer (DA)

Stores the transaction data within the Rollup block and provides it to anyone, allowing them to reconstruct the Rollup's transactions at any time. The DA layer can be Layer 1, or dedicated DA layers like Celestia, EigenDA, or more centralized data availability committees, etc.

2.2 Challenges Facing the Popularization of ZK-Rollup

Although ZK-Rollups have many advantages and are seen by Vitalik as a long-term scaling solution for Ethereum, the numerous technical challenges they face limit large-scale adoption at this stage.

For instance, the high cost of computing ZKP, the complexity of zkEVM, and the high hardware requirements for ZKP computation may lead to centralization, among others.

High Cost of Computing ZKP

ZKP computation is resource-intensive. Taking the most popular ZK algorithm zk-SNARKs as an example, the production of ZKP essentially transforms the execution process of a program into a verifiable proposition.

This proposition is abstracted into a polynomial equation set, and to prove the correctness of the program execution (the existence of polynomial solutions), pairing operations must be performed on elliptic curves.

The generation of polynomials and elliptic curve pairings is highly computationally intensive, as they require handling a large number of algebraic operations.

In terms of hardware requirements and execution time, this computational complexity leads to high hardware demands. Ordinary hardware may struggle to complete these calculations within a reasonable timeframe, especially when processing a large number of transactions.

The time taken to generate a zk-SNARK proof is significantly longer than the time taken to execute the original program (excluding the proof generation process). Depending on different implementations and transaction complexities, the time to generate proofs can be hundreds to thousands of times that of the original computation.

High Hardware Requirements for ZKP Computation May Lead to Centralization

Due to the high costs and hardware requirements of ZKP computation, small-scale Rollup operators may find it challenging to make the necessary investments to become Provers.

In this case, only a few participants with high-performance computing resources can effectively generate proofs, leading to a trend of centralization within ZK-Rollups. This centralization may contradict the decentralized spirit of blockchain and could introduce risks of single points of failure and censorship.

Complexity of zkEVM

In terms of design compatibility, the EVM was not originally designed to accommodate zero-knowledge proof technologies. The EVM is a stack-based virtual machine that supports a range of opcodes for executing smart contracts.

To ensure that any program executed by the EVM can generate valid proofs through zk-SNARKs, a corresponding mathematical representation and proof logic must be created for each opcode of the EVM. This requires complex cryptographic transformations and poses challenges for compatibility with existing smart contracts.

Implementing zkEVM requires extensive mathematical modeling of EVM opcodes, transforming program execution into a form that can be proven through zk-SNARKs.

This includes simulating EVM state transitions, memory operations, and contract calls. Given the flexibility and complexity of the EVM, this task is extremely daunting. Additionally, maintaining the efficiency and security of zkEVM to ensure it can generate small, verifiable proofs is another significant challenge.

How Lumoz Addresses the Bottlenecks of ZK-Rollup Popularization

Lumoz is a decentralized ZK-RaaS (ZK-Rollup as a Service) platform and also a PoW (Proof of Work) network designed to support ZKP (Zero-Knowledge Proof) mining.

To tackle the series of challenges facing ZK-Rollups, Lumoz introduces the concept of ZK-RaaS. This service allows developers to launch their zkEVM chains in under a minute without needing in-depth knowledge of ZK or chain nodes.

Lumoz also introduces the concept of ZK-PoW, inviting miners to participate in maintaining zkEVM and computing ZKP. Lumoz aims to simplify the use of ZK-Rollups and promote their broader adoption, facilitating the large-scale deployment of application chains based on zkEVM.

Developers can deploy their ZK-Rollups (zkEVM) across multiple chains with a single click. For miners, Lumoz acts as a multi-chain PoW protocol, supporting ZK mining across various public chains and generating zero-knowledge proofs for ZK-Rollups.

3.1 ZK-PoW Cloud: Addressing ZK Computing Power and Centralization Issues

The issue of ZK computing power and centralization essentially stems from the high computational requirements of ZKP, with hardware thresholds leading to centralization problems.

Lumoz leverages the ZK-PoW mechanism to incentivize miners to provide ZKP computing power, offering comprehensive hardware infrastructure for ZK-Rollups, which is one of Lumoz's core philosophies.

All participants, including users, developers, and miners, can benefit from Lumoz's economic model, supporting the large-scale application of ZK-Rollups.

Utilization of Existing Hardware Resources by Lumoz

After the transition from Ethereum PoW to PoS, many Ethereum mining machines lost their application scenarios. The capital value of these mining machines is approximately $12 billion, with many currently idle. With the large-scale implementation of ZK-Rollups, generating ZKP requires substantial hardware and mining machines, such as CPUs, GPUs, and FPGAs, to provide computational power.

Lumoz optimizes the ZKP algorithm, lowering the participation threshold for miners and improving scalability efficiency.

• Proposing a two-step submission mechanism for ZKP verification, lowering the participation threshold for miners.

To encourage more miners to participate in ZKP computation tasks simultaneously, Lumoz proposes a two-step submission mechanism for ZKP verification.

Submit proofhash: Within a certain timeframe, multiple miners can participate in ZKP computation, rather than rewarding the miner who computes ZKP first immediately. This design allows for broader participation, not limited to the miners with the strongest computational power. After completing the ZKP computation, miners do not immediately submit their computed raw proof; instead, they first hash the proof along with their own address (proof/address) to generate a hash value called proofhash. They then submit this proofhash to a specific contract on the blockchain, a step that does not require revealing the specific content of the proof, ensuring the security and efficiency of the submission process, and allowing more miners to participate in the computation.

Submit ZKP: After the time frame ends, miners submit the raw proof and compare it with the previously submitted proofhash for verification. This step ensures that the submitted proof is the one declared in the first step, preventing cheating. Miners who pass this verification will receive PoW rewards, which are distributed based on the miners' stakes, not just to the miner who computed ZKP first.

(Source: https://docs.lumoz.org/v/zhong-wen-jian-ti/lumoz-bai-pi-shu-v2)

• Optimizing ZKP generation algorithms to improve proof efficiency.

When Rollup smart contracts verify ZKP, submitting the raw proof may trigger on-chain attacks. To avoid such attacks, ZK-Rollups often perform additional operations to obscure the raw proof data. Lumoz's innovative two-step submission algorithm for ZKP adopts a "submit first, verify later" approach, avoiding unnecessary aggregation computations on the proof and address.

In some open-source zkEVMs, the computation and submission of ZKP occur sequentially. When ZK-Rollups submit a large number of sequences, this can become a bottleneck, as miners cannot compute multiple ZKPs in parallel. Lumoz's two-step submission algorithm enables parallel computation of ZKP and sequential submission, allowing miners to execute multiple ZKP generation tasks simultaneously, significantly improving ZKP generation efficiency.

The Lumoz team has also improved the ZKP recursive aggregation algorithm, significantly enhancing the utilization of machine resources within the cluster and further accelerating ZKP computation. Stress tests conducted in real environments show that using a machine cluster composed of 20 machines (each equipped with 128-core CPUs and 1TB of memory) can maintain a rate of 27.8 transactions per second in about 40 minutes. Under similar conditions, Lumoz successfully reduced the average transaction confirmation time from approximately 5-6 minutes to about 3 minutes, improving ZKP generation efficiency by about 80%.

As more ZK-Rollups and miners participate, the demand and supply scale of the ZKP computing power market will continue to expand, making the efficiency improvements provided by Lumoz's PoW algorithm increasingly significant.

3.2 ZK-RaaS: Addressing Development Barriers

One-Click Generation of ZK-Rollup

Lumoz's ZK-RaaS (ZK-Rollup as a Service) provides all users with a one-click ZK-Rollup generation service.

Lumoz offers a universal ZK-Rollup launchpad, enabling developers to easily deploy different types of ZK-Rollups on various base chains.

These base chains include Ethereum, Lumoz Chain, BNB Chain, Polygon PoS, and other public chains.

Types of ZK-Rollups (zkEVM) include zkSync, Polygon zkEVM, Scroll, StarkNet, and other zkEVMs, as well as various other ZK-Rollups.

Convenient Management of ZK-Rollup

Lumoz deploys a Rollup System Contract (RSC) on each base chain to manage the lifecycle of Rollups on that chain, including registration, pausing, and revocation.

By using a certain amount of MOZ (Lumoz's native token) to lease a Rollup slot, developers can own a ZK-Rollup.

The concept of a Rollup slot is similar to slots in Polkadot or application chains in Cosmos. However, Cosmos's application chains require maintaining their own consensus layer and cross-chain bridging, which poses significant security risks. In contrast, ZK-Rollups apply ZK technology to ensure consensus and data availability layer sharing between the Rollup and the base chain through mathematical methods. This approach is safer, more decentralized, and has lower maintenance costs.

After leasing a Rollup slot, developers gain an independent execution environment and can have a unique ZK-Rollup chain. Developers have complete control over the ZK-Rollup and can customize its economic model, including choosing the GAS token. They can freely adjust GAS fees, even setting them to zero, allowing users to use it for free.

Low Cost

Developers do not need to bear any hardware costs. All hardware resources, such as data availability, serialization, and ZKP computing power, are provided and decentralized by Lumoz's ZK-PoW cloud.

Interoperability

Local cross-Rollup communication can be achieved between different ZK-Rollups on different base chains. This is a messaging communication mechanism that allows an address on one Rollup to directly interact with a contract on another Rollup. This functionality greatly addresses the fragmentation of user assets and enhances interoperability between applications.

3.3 Lumoz Chain: Further Optimizing ZK-Rollups Built on Lumoz

Lumoz Chain is one of the base chains supported by Lumoz, adopting a hybrid consensus model of PoS and PoW, which not only supports Lumoz's ZK-PoW cloud but also provides further optimization for ZK-Rollups.

Optimizations for ZK-Rollup Performance

These optimizations include using precompiled contracts to accelerate ZKP verification, supporting data sharding, and based on ETH 2.0's PoS consensus. Future expansions will support EIP-4844, DankSharding, and other fully sharded solutions, potentially reducing the GAS costs of Rollups to nearly zero.

A Decentralized Sequencer Solution

Allowing block proposers on the Lumoz chain to simultaneously propose blocks for the Rollup layer effectively separates the roles of builders and proposers.

Builders receive support through a permissionless P2P network, while proposers rely on the block proposers of the Lumoz chain. This method eliminates the availability risk of a single node while maintaining resistance to Miner Extractable Value (MEV) and censorship.

Lumoz Chain provides a standardized decentralized serialization mechanism, where block proposers also propose blocks for the Rollup. In this way, ZK-Rollups inherit not only security from higher layers but also their degree of decentralization.

On the Lumoz chain: Anyone holding Lumoz tokens can become a validator, and validators can earn block rewards and gas fees from the Lumoz chain.

In the Rollup layer:

PoS (Sequencer): Validators propose blocks in both the Lumoz chain and the Rollup layer (i.e., data batches). Thus, they also act as sorters in the Rollup layer, where they can earn GAS fees from transactions.

PoW (Prover): Anyone with sufficient computing power to perform ZKP calculations can become a prover in the Rollup layer. According to PoW rules, provers generate zk proofs from the Rollup layer blocks submitted by sequencers.

ZK-Rollup is akin to a computer, where the hard drive represents data availability provided by PoS, and the CPU reflects the computational power granted by PoW.

The task of the Lumoz chain is to strike a balance between PoS and PoW, enabling all participants to maximize their contributions and benefits, thereby enhancing the performance and user experience of large-scale ZK-Rollup networks.

Market Landscape and Lumoz's Unique Entry Point

Looking at the RaaS and modular track, the current market competition has become intense. The settlement layer is already a game for major players like ETH, Optimism, and Arbitrum;

Interoperability has seen assets cross-chain bridges like Mini Bridge, Orbiter, and Connext, as well as cross-chain communication projects like Layzero and Chainlink CCIP;

The DA layer has been occupied by projects like Celestia and EigenDA, holding an absolute market position; at the Rollup stack level, most Rollup projects, even RaaS providers, heavily rely on development kits provided by L2s like Optimism, Arbitrum, Polygon, and zkSync, leading to the homogenization of RaaS projects focused solely on development tools;

In the decentralized sorter layer, new projects like Altlayer and Espresso have gained first-mover advantages.

Homogenization and oligopoly are prominent characteristics of the RaaS and modular track. New projects need unique entry points and forward-looking layouts to break through.

The combination of computing power modules and RaaS launched by Lumoz can provide a one-stop solution to a series of pain points for ZK-Rollups, accelerating their rapid popularization.

Currently, Lumoz is already a leading "integrated" platform in the segmented field of ZK-Rollup RaaS. As the penetration rate of ZK-Rollups increases, Lumoz has great potential to grow into the most prominent player in the ZK-Rollup niche.

In terms of comparable projects, it is reasonable to compare Lumoz to AltLayer in the ZK track. Both Lumoz and AltLayer are not purely RaaS projects but empower RaaS through specific features, providing more comprehensive services to clients and thus gaining advantageous market positions.

(Source: Binance Research)

AltLayer has gained a certain market position by empowering RaaS through a restaking sequencer based on EigenLayer. Lumoz, on the other hand, helps ZK-Rollup projects solve computational challenges after launch by sharing ZK computing power.

(https://docs.altlayer.io/altlayer-documentation)

AltLayer currently has a market cap of $670 million, with a fully diluted valuation exceeding $5.3 billion. AltLayer's market performance demonstrates the high value capture of the RaaS track. Similarly, Lumoz, as a leading player in the ZK RaaS track, is also expected to achieve impressive market performance when ZK-Rollups fully explode by integrating ZK computing power and RaaS services.

Project Background

Lumoz's predecessor was Opside, which also operated as a ZK-RaaS platform. On April 8 of this year, Lumoz disclosed that it completed a new round of financing at a valuation of $120 million, with participation from OKX Ventures, HashKey Capital, KuCoin Ventures, and others.

As of now, Lumoz has raised a total of $10 million. The third round of financing has begun, with some institutions already confirmed to participate.

(Source: https://www.rootdata.com/Projects/detail/Lumoz?k=NTkxMQ%3D%3D)

Lumoz's ability to quickly gain a leading advantage in ZK computing modules and receive support from numerous top institutions stems from its deep accumulation of ZK technical experience and PoW mining resources.

Before launching Lumoz, the team also participated in two ZK mining projects, 6block and zk.Work, showcasing their pioneering position in ZK mining.

(Source: https://6block.com/)

(Source: https://zkp.6block.com/)

Progress and Planning

With excellent technology and resources, Lumoz has already facilitated the birth of several emerging ETH L2 and BTC L2 projects, such as ZKFair and Merlin Chain. ZKFair: https://zkfair.io/
Merlin Chain: https://merlinchain.io/

The rapid rise of these projects indicates that Lumoz's solid technical capabilities have been recognized by the market.

Currently, Lumoz's core component, Lumoz Chain, is in the Alpha Testnet phase, with plans to launch the mainnet in July this year and token generation expected in August.

Lumoz places great importance on ecosystem building and early user feedback. Since August of last year, Lumoz has launched a four-month incentive testnet event called the Gala Event, achieving excellent results.

The Gala Event attracted nearly 700,000 community users to participate, with 25,000 PoS nodes involved in network validation, and 145 mining entities contributing hash power to Lumoz. Additionally, 15 zkEVM projects are stably running on the Lumoz chain.

(Source: https://twitter.com/LumozOrg/status/1740925588003840194)

Currently, Lumoz is also continuing to collaborate with ZKFair and Glaxe on the Dragon Slayer event to incentivize user participation. The third phase of the event is currently underway, which will distribute 25 million Lumoz points and over 8,000 USDC in rewards.

Within 24 hours of the launch of the third phase event, over 147,000 users have participated, demonstrating the event's popularity and users' confidence in Lumoz.

Lumoz expects to launch the mainnet in Q3, and users can participate early in Lumoz through the Dragon Slayer event. Event link:
https://dragon-slayer.zkfair.io/

(Source: https://twitter.com/ZKFCommunity/status/1775014125263003766)

Conclusion and Outlook

With the maturation of ZK-related technologies, ZK-Rollups will achieve significant market share in the future Ethereum scaling market.

Lumoz's foresight in addressing the pain points and demands of ZK-Rollups has made it a pioneer and leader in this field. From the enthusiasm of various activities, it is evident that users have fully recognized Lumoz.

With the Lumoz team's market foresight and deep relevant resources, we believe Lumoz can become a leader in the ZK-RaaS track, promoting the large-scale application of ZK-Rollups. Let us look forward to Lumoz's future performance.