Scroll Co-Founder Discusses zkEVM Mainnet Launch

The protocol is presented by Al Goran Fill today with Algo Kit. Welcome back to first mover. There's a new Ethereum layer two network on the block. Scroll, ZKEBM has launched its main net and hopes to scale the Ethereum network without compromising security or decentralization. Joining us now to discuss is scroll co-founder Sandy Pang. Welcome to the show, Sandy. Um Thank you. It's great to be here. It's great to have you now to start off. I want you to zoom all the way out for our audience and maybe just lay the foundation for us. Uh What is scroll trying to solve here for the billions of people that we're trying to bring into this industry. You know, we always hear builders say we got to get the masses here. What's the problem we're solving for the masses? Yeah, to zoom out, essentially scroll is a layer to for Ethereum and it's trying to solve the fundamental scalability problem. Um So scroll functions as an extension of Ethereum to reduce gas fee and increase throughput. And with that, as Ethereum protocol becomes more and more popular amongst the masses of builders around world as long as well. As users. Um we expect to collectively on board billions of users. Um Why is Ethereum important? Um I think Ethereum exists as the value layer of the internet, anything to do with on chain transaction and um to do with um anything that we're seeing amongst the DFI game five, everything we're seeing built on chain essentially um can be built in the EVM environment. And Ethereum is the most decentralized of all the protocols and it is also the most secure. Um At scroll, we also prioritize security above all else because our, our, our developers, sustainability, our developers kind of security and user funds are of paramount importance to us. Hi Sandy. Uh we actually spoke at the same event at in Hong Kong. I feel not, not so long ago. It's nice to see you. Um Anyway, I um um so uh that's, that's actually a very clear answer. I guess that the, the second question would be, you know, as we know, for years, you've been hearing about a lot of people talking about um improving the scalability of the theory and there's a lot of projects doing that. So what kind of, what, what do you guys think is your sort of like special competitive advantage over the other projects that are trying to do something similar? Um Yeah, of course. Um So we're ZKEVM and that means compared to some of the earlier roll ups of the optimistic variety. Um ZK roll ups as a whole provides instant finality. Um And, and that's very important for um high stake transactions and for any particular kind of unchain transactions where users prefer to push back the funds instantly. And so, um and that is really important for pretty much most of the D five primitives that we see on chain today. Um I think compared to the sum of the ZK roll ups that currently exist in the space, um scroll is meeting developers where they are. So part of our launch slogan is called copy paste and deploy. Because anyone who is an existing EVM developer can copy paste and deploy their existing Ethereum application on scroll. So we've taken two years um and a very painstaking and a very complicated engineering process in order to build something that is EVM equivalent. So essentially replicating every Ethereum by code. And um so as to provide developers exactly the same experience as building on Ethereum lay one. Can you let us know what exactly when you talk about improving and more efficient? How do we measure it? And, and how, how is scroll more efficient? How is it uh you know, how do we measure it's, it's uh what it does compared to what the alternatives. Um I think at a high level we can expect um scroll to improve the to scale Ethereum by an order of magnitude. So um that means block time will be roughly in the low single digits and um and, but um other metrics are somewhat difficult to estimate because it depends on the popularity of scroll upon launch. So essentially scroll acts as I often compare it like a train. And um the cost of which depends on how many passengers on the same train. You know, Emily mentioned that there are other Zkev MS out there, Polygon and Matter Labs launched theirs uh earlier this year. How are you planning to attract developers? What's the benefit for building with school uh over, let's say a polygon or a matter lapse. What's your strategy? Um So I think both of those teams have built fantastic products. I think um scroll comes at it with a slightly different angle. So we're very um so we're, we're, we're, we're, we're essentially EVM equivalent and um we're building our project in a very community oriented focus with very community oriented focus. And um we're trying to build a global social consensus. Um And essentially every layer two will pick slightly different technical routes going forward. The first iteration is going to be a relatively similar product because that's where most of the existing developers are. Any plans for a token. Um I can't comment on that one. All right, Sandy, we were very focused on our main net launch today, which is what we're here to talk about. All right, Sandy, we are going to leave it there. Thanks so much for joining the show and congratulations on the main net launch. Thank you very much for having me. That was Scroll co-founder Sandy Penn.