Exclusive Interview with Zircuit Co-founder: Discussing Team Background, Technical Architecture, and Incentive Plans
Author: Colin Wu
Colin Wu, the founder of Wu Says Blockchain, discusses the project background, technical architecture, and development plans of Zircuit with Martin Derka, co-founder of Zircuit, and Angel Xu. Zircuit has gained support from well-known investment institutions such as Binance due to its experience in smart contract auditing. Based on Ethereum's OP Stack and combined with zero-knowledge proof (ZK) technology, it has built the "Sequencer-Level Security (SLS)" system to identify potential risks in advance. Zircuit promotes cross-chain cooperation with ecosystems like Solana and attracts developers through the "Build to Earn" program and staking incentives. Previously, Zircuit received investments from Binance Labs, Pantera Capital, Dragonfly Capital, and Maelstrom.
Recently, the Zircuit collaboration event with Binance Web3 Wallet is also underway. Meanwhile, the Eigen Fairdrop event has officially launched, and all eligible wallets will receive rewards.
Can you introduce the Zircuit team and the background of its members?
Colin:
Sure, welcome Martin and Angel. Could you briefly introduce the members of the Zircuit team and your backgrounds?
Martin:
Our team has four co-founders. My colleague Jan and I are the technical co-founders of Zircuit. Our backgrounds are quite similar; we both obtained PhDs from the University of Waterloo in Canada and have long been engaged in smart contract auditing, having worked at a top company responsible for smart contract security audits. With our academic backgrounds, we have also accumulated rich experience in research. Additionally, we have 10 to 15 years of diverse software engineering experience across various positions in large companies and small businesses. At Zircuit, we focus on achieving platform stability, user accessibility, and security.
Angel:
Krishna and I are the co-founders responsible for business. We have worked together for many years, and Krishna has been involved in the crypto industry since 2016. We have both invested in and advised multiple projects. I previously founded a startup and led several investment projects. All members of our team met through work, and our long-term collaboration has built a deep trust among us.
Your project has received investments from Binance, Pantera, and Dragonfly. How did you gain their support?
Colin:
We have seen news reports stating that your project has received support from top investment institutions in the crypto space like Binance, Pantera, and Dragonfly. Can you share some experiences that attracted these investments? Especially, how did you get top institutions like Binance interested in your project?
Angel:
In fact, most of Zircuit's R&D was self-funded until we completed the product. We only started seeking funding after launching the Rollup, as our Rollup has some unique advantages in security compared to other Rollups, particularly in terms of security features at the sequencer level. Therefore, it was relatively easy to persuade investors during our fundraising efforts because they could see the actual performance of the product and clearly understand the value these features bring to users and the project. Many projects start fundraising when they are only at the conceptual stage or when the product is not yet formed, which often makes it difficult for investors to fully grasp their vision and broader impact. For us, another significant advantage is that our team members have rich experience in the industry, allowing us to establish many partnerships and friendships. Many of our funding targets already knew us, making the whole process smoother.
Has Zircuit received early funding from the Ethereum Foundation? What role does it play in the project?
Colin:
Has Zircuit received funding from the Ethereum Foundation? What are your views on the foundation's support for you and other ecosystem projects?
Martin:
It should be clarified that Zircuit itself did not receive direct funding from the Ethereum Foundation, but some of our co-founders did receive funding from the foundation to research specific topics. For example, Jan received a grant to study the security of Rollups and the security of existing Rollup chains. During this project, we developed a comprehensive security framework to assess the security of Rollup networks. This research has given us profound insights in this field, allowing us to see the strengths and weaknesses of Rollups more clearly. This knowledge provides us with a comprehensive perspective on the current security status of Rollups, helping us improve Zircuit better. Our goal has always been to pursue the best solutions, and everything starts with research.
We also received a grant to study Rollup data compression. Rollups naturally generate a large amount of data because users send transactions to the Rollup, which processes them off-chain (outside of L1). The role of the Rollup is to record these transactions on the data availability layer, ideally using L1 as this layer. We found that the compression algorithm used by Zircuit saves about 40% in costs. Although compression requires additional computational power, this trade-off can yield significant benefits. Through this research, we were able to answer some key questions, such as whether to publish raw data directly or compress it first, and then assess the cost-effectiveness of each approach. These findings are beneficial not only for Zircuit but also for the entire Ethereum community, as we share the research results through these funding projects.
How does Zircuit view the competition between Ethereum and Solana?
Colin:
In the Asian community, especially when Ethereum's recent price performance has been poor, people often compare Ethereum and Solana. Multicoin Capital and some other institutions frequently make comparisons between them. I think your team clearly leans towards supporting Ethereum; how do you view the competition between Ethereum and Solana?
Angel:
For us, since we are a Rollup on Ethereum, we have been committed to building within the Ethereum ecosystem from the very beginning. However, we are also interested in establishing connections with other ecosystems, such as Solana. We have already reached out to some Solana staking partners and may integrate them into our staking program in the future. I believe there are many possibilities ahead, such as collaborating with projects from other ecosystems or connecting Ethereum and Solana through cross-chain bridges. We maintain an open attitude and are very pleased to see Solana's development.
Martin:
Let me add to that. We chose to join the Ethereum ecosystem and selected Ethereum as L1 because we focus on helping it scale. The developer ecosystem on Ethereum is very strong, and the chain we provide uses the same tools, environment, and execution model, allowing developers to join us without a steep learning curve. At the same time, since Zircuit's establishment, we have also collaborated with ecosystems outside of Ethereum. For example, we integrated Bitcoin's restaking platform into our staking program to provide rewards for users. While we are firmly rooted in Ethereum and believe in its future, we also recognize that we are in a multi-chain coexistence world, which includes not only Ethereum's L2 and potential future L3 but also other chains like Bitcoin and Solana. As Angel mentioned, we are excited about cross-chain opportunities and creating opportunities for users to use capital across different ecosystems.
Can you briefly introduce Zircuit's hybrid architecture and how it differs from OP Rollup and ZK Rollup?
Colin:
Can you briefly introduce the hybrid architecture currently adopted by Zircuit and explain how it differs from OP Rollup (Optimistic Rollup) and ZK Rollup (Zero-Knowledge Rollup) in terms of advantages?
Martin:
Of course. We primarily have two types of Rollups: optimistic and zero-knowledge. Optimistic Rollups aggregate state and allow users to challenge the correctness of the state over a period of time. OP Stack is a quite powerful optimistic Rollup framework. Building a Rollup is not just about setting up the Rollup mechanism; it also requires a sequencer, data publishing components, smart contracts, cross-chain bridges, execution layers, and various other components. OP Stack provides templates for most of these components, giving developers a great starting point.
However, since we want to build a zero-knowledge Rollup rather than an optimistic Rollup, the original configuration of OP Stack is not entirely suitable for us. Therefore, we removed all components related to the optimistic model and replaced them with the services and devices required for zero-knowledge functionality. This led us to build a hybrid architecture. From the user's perspective, it operates like a complete zero-knowledge Rollup, but the underlying design is a hybrid architecture.
The benefit of this approach for us and the community is that we can leverage the framework and foundation of OP Stack. If we were to build everything from scratch, the costs and time would be enormous; by using OP Stack, we benefit from the stability and reliability that other chains have tested over the years. In software engineering, having a well-tested and trusted foundation is invaluable. Therefore, we can benefit from the developer community of OP Stack, where developers continuously discover and fix bugs, and we can directly merge those fixes into our codebase.
With Ethereum's ongoing upgrades (such as the anticipated "Petrus" upgrade in early 2025), our alignment with OP Stack allows us to receive these improvements in a timely manner. Because we are built on the same foundation, we can easily adapt to Ethereum's updates, ensuring that our Rollup remains compatible. When necessary, we will modify OP Stack to meet our needs, so we are adopting a truly hybrid architecture.
SLS is the core of your project. Can you explain how it works and how it addresses transaction review issues?
Colin:
SLS (Sequencer-Level Security) is a key feature of your project and is related to the current hot topic in the crypto industry, AI. However, some people worry that SLS may block certain transactions. Can you explain how this feature works and respond to these concerns?
Martin:
Sure. Let me first explain what SLS is, and then I'll address the specific concerns. In Zircuit, when a transaction arrives, we do not simply place it into a block and add it to the chain. Instead, we actively analyze whether the transaction may pose a threat to the chain or trigger an attack. Each transaction is first evaluated by the AI module within the SLS system to determine if it is malicious. This AI system is quite advanced, partly because we are part of the Ethereum ecosystem. Zircuit's mainnet just launched this summer, and as a relatively young chain, you might wonder how we trained the AI model to identify malicious transactions. Here, Ethereum's rich ecosystem has provided us with significant help; we can analyze data from other EVM-compatible chains to distinguish between normal and malicious transactions, effectively training our AI model.
If the AI marks a transaction as malicious, we isolate it. This isolation mechanism allows us to check for protocol vulnerabilities on Zircuit, giving us or the community time to pause or fix the protocol, or at least alert users to the issue.
A significant advantage here is that we can precisely study the flagged transactions and gain insights into the details of the attack or vulnerability, which is more efficient than traditional smart contract audits. The quality of traditional audits depends on the auditor's expertise and imagination, while our model allows for proactive security protection, aiming to prevent attacks from occurring, as attacks on the blockchain are often irreversible once they happen.
Concerns about transaction review mainly depend on the false positive rate of the AI model. If the model incorrectly marks a normal transaction as malicious, it can lead to a poor user experience. However, our mainnet has been running for about 3-4 months, and the testnet has been running for nearly a year, processing millions of transactions. So far, there have been no false positives. Normal transactions are usually very simple and can be easily distinguished from malicious transactions. Based on our testing, the model's accuracy exceeds 99.5%, meaning normal transactions are almost never misclassified.
If a normal transaction is indeed misclassified, we have mechanisms in place to allow its release. Isolated transactions undergo manual review, and users can choose to cancel the transaction or retry later. Additionally, everything related to SLS is transparently available on-chain, allowing users to monitor at any time. If users feel that SLS is unfairly reviewing transactions, they are free to opt out and transact elsewhere.
So far, our community has highly recognized the security advantages brought by SLS, especially as it provides effective protection for users needing to guard against potential vulnerabilities.
When will the mainnet be fully launched? Is there a token or airdrop plan? What future incentives are there?
Colin:
The next question is, when will the Zircuit mainnet be fully launched? Is there a token or airdrop plan? We know that Zircuit currently has a Build to Earn program, and many people in the Asian community are participating. Can you introduce any potential airdrop activities in the future?
Martin:
Yes, the question about the mainnet is easy to answer—our mainnet is already live. We launched in private mode at the beginning of July for partners to test the network and deploy their systems. By early August, we opened the network to the public. Information on how to connect, how the cross-chain bridge operates, etc., can be found at docs.zircuit.com. Therefore, the mainnet is fully open and accessible.
In the early days of Zircuit, we launched two main programs. One is the restaking program for liquid staking tokens, and the other is the Build to Earn program you mentioned. The Build to Earn program is still ongoing and aims to attract developers. We provide a stable and secure platform for developers to deploy and build exciting projects on Zircuit. Developers participating in this program can earn points, which will be rewarded based on their project's contribution to the ecosystem. Developers can apply through build.zircuit.com, and our ecosystem team will contact them to assess how to support their work and potentially reward them with points.
We also launched a staking program. To foster an active DeFi ecosystem, we need liquidity, so we launched a staking program on L1 in March, allowing users to deposit liquidity staking assets—ETH, BTC, and potentially other assets in the future. These assets will gradually migrate to L2, gathering in our central liquidity hub to provide liquidity for DeFi projects launched on Zircuit. So far, the Build to Earn program has received over 1,600 project submissions, with about 80 projects actively building on Zircuit, such as Ocelex, a decentralized exchange, and Elara, a native lending platform.
Regarding token incentives, Zircuit does have a governance token that has already been released on the Ethereum mainnet. Users can earn tokens by participating in staking, building, or other reward activities, but currently, these tokens are locked and cannot be transferred; they will be unlocked in the future. We will continue to roll out more incentive activities, and the latest information will be published on our Twitter, Discord, and official website. Everyone can follow us and the airdrop opportunities for projects building on Zircuit. So please keep an eye on Zircuit L2's Twitter or X and watch for our announcements.