The Rollup Coaster #23

April 4th, 2024

The Rollup Coaster is a bi-weekly newsletter that dives into the fascinating world of Ethereum, exploring the latest in rollups, zero-knowledge proofs, MEV-PBS, and much more.

This edition is written by Taiko’s Community Advocate Jünger.

Hold on tight! 🎢

Disclaimer: This newsletter is neither financial advice, nor is indicative of Taiko’s position on any of the material presented. Please do your own research.

Highlights 🎢

Vitalik discussed the enhancement of Ethereum staking decentralization through the introduction of more anti-correlation incentives. The proposal aims to penalize correlated failures among validators to incentivize decentralization by reducing the advantage that large stakers have over smaller ones.
Vitalik also discussed the activation of the Dencun, also known as blobs. Blobs are now cheaper than calldata, marking a crucial milestone in Ethereum's scaling efforts. This transition signifies a shift from a "zero-to-one" scaling problem to a "one-to-N" challenge, requiring ongoing work to enhance blob count and optimize rollups' utilization of each blob. Additionally, the discussion includes the implementation of EIP-7623 to set limits on block sizes and enhance safety in increasing blob targets and the L1 gas limit.

ZK and rollup research 🧙

Aztec discussed based rollup in the context of reducing block time in a new post.
A paper has been published that examines accumulation schemes built only from hash functions.
Lagrange published Reckle Trees paper. Reckle is a new vector commitment based on succinct recursive arguments and Merkle trees.
Ingonyama described a new game mechanic enabled by ZK and MPC in the blog post, Cryptographic Fog of War.
Alex discussed the ZK proofs in the context of blockchain scalability on The Block Podcast episode.
Ingonyama announced the Aleo IP Core, a privacy-focused L1 with a consensus mechanism based on KZG puzzles. It incentivizes efficient provers to solve ZK coinbase puzzles, promoting demand for ZK proofs.

ZK and rollup updates 🗞️

Gevulot devnet is live. It is possible to test the network by running Taiko’s open-source prover.
Optimism enabled fraud proofs on Sepolia testnet.
Citrea published Clementine, a trust-minimized two-way peg program.
Blobs announcement from Scroll.
Starknet’s block size is getting bigger.
RiscZero shared zkVM’s roadmap.

MEV/PBS/staking research and updates 🔍

Mike Neuder published a research post explaining the risks of LSTs.
Anoma, intent machine for Ethereum.

Education and events 🎫

ZK is wandering around Athens. Two exciting events will be organized;
- ZKAccelerate on April 11th by Ingonyama.
- ZKsummit11 on April 10th by ZeroKnowledgeFM.