Development of Layer-1 Projects in the Blockchain Industry and the Rise of New Public Chains

There are many Layer-1 projects in the blockchain industry, including well-known projects like Bitcoin and Ethereum, as well as some emerging public chains. Despite the fierce competition, new public chains with unique advantages continue to emerge, and technology is continuously iterating. In the future, most Layer-1 projects, including Aptos and Sui, are likely to adopt zkRollup technology based on zkEVM, and cross-chain zkRollup solutions may eventually emerge.

Aptos/Sui and Move Smart Contract Language

In 2022, the most attention-grabbing emerging public chains are Aptos and Sui, which use the Move smart contract language. These projects were initiated by engineers who were involved in the development of a well-known social media company's Blockchain project, inheriting many features of that project while differing in terms of performance, programming languages, and mechanisms from existing L1 public chains.

The characteristics of the Move language redefine the "module structure," allowing tokens, NFTs, smart contracts, and other assets to be defined modularly using a single data module. This is something that the Ethereum EVM struggles to match. For example, the Move language adopts a resource-based approach, which can effectively avoid the classic reentrancy attack problem that has long plagued projects within the EVM ecosystem, often resulting in significant losses.

Whether Aptos/Sui can become a mainstream public chain depends not only on the language used but, more importantly, on the innovative capabilities of future on-chain projects. Currently, while these new public chains are technically advanced, they still lack sufficient applications and user traffic. For public chains, technological innovation is certainly important, but the feedback of on-chain projects to the traffic of the public chain itself is equally crucial.

In order to gain significant traffic from the EVM ecosystem, Aptos and Sui may embrace the EVM system and Layer 2 networks in the future, especially the state-of-the-art zkRollup technology based on zkEVM.

Build zkEVM-based zkRollup on Aptos/Sui

In the long term, zkRollup may become a concise, highly secure, and efficient scaling solution. Theoretically, zkRollup can be deployed on any network capable of verifying its proofs, so building a zkEVM zkRollup on Aptos/Sui is feasible.

The main benefits of doing this are twofold: first, it can attract developers and users from the EVM ecosystem. For developers, deploying products on the high compatibility zkEVM-based zkRollup of Aptos/Sui is almost the same as deploying on Ethereum or other EVM-compatible chains, requiring little modification to code and design. This means that developers in the EVM ecosystem can migrate applications to the Aptos/Sui ecosystem at almost zero cost. Secondly, for users, zkRollup can provide lower (or even negligible) transaction fees and offer an experience close to traditional applications in terms of interaction speed and fee structure.

The key components for constructing zkEVM-based zkRollup include:

1. Sequencer: Responsible for receiving transactions and executing them through EVM nodes, generating easily provable execution records.
2. zkProver: A proof producer with zk-EVM that verifies the correctness of execution records and generates zero-knowledge proofs.
3. Smart Contracts: Deploy asset custody contracts, verification contracts, and governance contracts on Aptos/Sui to manage asset flow, verify proofs, and handle permission issues.

The Prospects of Omnichain zkRollup in the Web3 Network

The future Web3 network ecosystem may feature a coexistence of multiple public chains, with cross-chain asset transfers and interactions becoming important demands. Traditional cross-chain bridges may face scalability issues in a multi-chain environment, thus Omnichain zkRollup could become the ultimate solution for cross-chain and even full-chain applications.

Omnichain zkRollup builds on the general-purpose zkEVM-based zkRollup and combines it with cross-chain interoperability protocols to aggregate asset liquidity from all chains, playing the role of the execution layer for all chains. It ensures the correctness of transactions through zero-knowledge proofs and enjoys the same level of security equivalent to the sum of all chains.

On the Omnichain zkRollup, users can achieve fully programmable interactions with assets and information from all chains. This technology could bring limitless possibilities, such as decentralized exchanges aggregating all chains, GameFi and SocialFi for users across all chains, and even more diverse, varied, and borderless applications.