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Jul 20, 2022 13 tweets 4 min read Read on X
1/ Explaining the zkEVM

- what it is
- how zk-rollups compare with other rollup types
- the competitive landscape for zk-rollup creators

And who really was first 😉 Image
2/ A Layer-2 rollup is a way to batch user transactions together for cheaper gas costs while preserving most of the security guarantees of Ethereum mainnet.

Two main types: optimistic rollups & zk rollups
3/ Optimistic rollups such as Optimism & Arbitrum publish periodic state roots to mainnet, and rely on fraud proofs to ensure state is honest

ZK rollups such as Loopring & Starkware publish state roots to mainnet, but also include cryptographic proofs of validity Image
4/ ZK rollups are generally preferred for their stronger guarantees, but they're technically challenging. Developers have to write custom "circuits" in esoteric programming languages. Even tiny changes to functionality can require massive changes to the underlying circuit. Image
5/ This is the problem that zk-rollups like Loopring and Starkware have run into. While theoretically powerful, they're so complex that few devs can build on top of them.

So the holy grail: what if you could run arbitrary Solidity code on a zk-rollup? This is called the zkEVM 🤯
6/ Let's walk through the competitive market landscape, and call out recent bizdev marketing shenanigans
7/ Today, Polygon announced the first zkEVM
8/ Yesterday, Scroll announced the zero-th zkEVM
9/ Last December zkSync launched their live testnet, which makes them the negative-one-th zkEVM
10/ Loopring runs a zk-rollup, but it is not a zkEVM. It is purpose-built to handle a specific subset of activities such as token transfers and dex trades. Image
11/ Starkware runs a zk-rollup, but it is not a zkEVM. Developers must write custom logic using Cairo instead of Solidity. Image
12/ Setting aside who was "first", it's clear that the zkEVM holy grail is close! This is incredible news, the competition among multiple quality teams will only push innovation along faster.
13/ What does this mean for you, a nontechnical user?

Cheaper gas, more rollup options, and more apps on your favorite rollup.

Spot prices may have bull and bear markets, but technical innovation is up only 🔥

Thanks for reading, give it a share 👇

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More from @0xfoobar

Aug 11, 2023
The FriendTech Smart Contract 🧵 Image
Surprisingly simple, but it is all onchain

You can see all transactions flowing through it on BaseScan at https://t.co/cGGF1cF4Kfbasescan.org/address/0xcf20…
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Friend shares are not an ERC20, but they're tracked similarly to one. This means you could theoretically write a wrapper intermediary to spin up liquidity pools, but imagine there's a reason they've shied away from this. Nobody has done so yet
Read 12 tweets
Jul 7, 2023
why vAMMs are doomed to fail 🧵
first, what's a vAMM?

a virtual automated market maker is like a uniswap v2 pool without any actual liquidity. it simulates having liquidity, and moves prices up and down with buys and sells like it was xy=k

but there are no underlying tokens, just math simulations
why is this an attractive product?

because it gets you levered perp-like behavior on arbitrary tokens, like NFTs. this makes bootstrapping markets easier. and users love it, as shown by 500MM of volume on the nftperp beta
Read 16 tweets
May 16, 2023
Ledger can’t even keep its own story straight
This was always obvious, btw. If they can recover your seed phrase for you when you lose your ledger, then they can recover your seed phrase when compelled by a government, when an insider gets bribed, when the database gets hacked, etc. TEEs get broken all the time
Their “privacy” policy is absolutely ridiculous. Zero chance they won’t roll over and leak your private keys to the nearest government at first signs of trouble Image
Read 4 tweets
May 16, 2023
Stop using Ledger hardware wallets. Migrate away from them immediately. They’ve shown nothing but gross incompetence and wild misunderstanding of their own purpose. And now they’ve publicly admitted to intentionally backdooring their own proprietary hardware. Stop using Ledger Image
“it’s opt-in, you don’t have to use it”

this is misdirection. a hardware wallet should have a secure enclave where the private key never leaves the device, under any circumstances

they’ve opened APIs for the enclave to send encrypted key shards to 3rd parties on the Internet
Reminder:

- Ledger previously had a data breach leaked a list of customer names and addresses
- Ledger is encouraging customers to wear hardware wallets as public jewelry
- Ledger can always leak private keys from the enclave with further firmware updates
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May 8, 2023
🥖 HOW TO AVOID GETTING SANDWICHED 🥖

1) go to docs.flashbots.net/flashbots-prot…
2) click green button
3) approve rpc
4) switch rpc

done, now you can go crazy with shitcoin slippage and the MEV bots won't get you

how and why does this work? 🧵 ImageImageImageImage
sandwich bots are only able to attack you because they see your buy order hanging around in the mempool before it gets included in a block

so you need to submit it to a private mempool instead of a public mempool

flashbots runs the largest private mempool, that's who to use
how do you choose which mempool to submit to? with your "RPC", which is the dropdown menu at the top of metam*sk

most aren't familiar with this, because metam*sk gives you a default RPC that routes transactions to the public mempool
Read 4 tweets
May 6, 2023
mainnet assets deliberately induce scarcity
testnets deliberately emulate mainnets
therefore testnet assets are scarce

cannot just "make a new one" to solve the scarcity problem, you must choose to explicitly drop one of the above two assumptions
we're not hardforking mainnet to make testing easier, so it's clear that testnets must relax their emulation assumptions to support widespread permissionless distribution

this can be done via ephemerality (rapid setup/teardown) or changing supply mechanics (infinite mint)
actually changing supply mechanics wouldn't help. if everybody could mint 1 gETH every minute, gas wouldn't be 1000 gwei, it would be 1000000 gwei. endless bot race

so ephemerality it is. the solution to overspeculation is increasing supply (of testnets). same as L1s/NFTs/memes
Read 5 tweets

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