Ethereum has undergone a software upgrade that promises to allow over 3,000 transactions per second

By Dorothy 12/11/19 8:17 AM

Over the weekend, Ethereum had a significant software upgrade, dubbed Istanbul. Hard forks bring a number of improvements to the network. While maintaining decentralization and privacy, this upgrade enables the integration of a second layer extension solution that promises to accept more than 3,000 transactions per second (TPS).

The Ethereum Foundation recently announced the fifth wave of grants. This year’s core focus is to support projects working on Eth2.0 and class 2 issues. Matter Labs is grateful to be one of the grantees. Matter Labs wants to emphasize their efforts to deliver the promise of creating value for the benefit of the entire Ethereum community.

Since then, the team is working on building ZK Sync. This is a reliable, scalable and secure solution that emphasizes user and developer experience.

Matter Labs Scaling Solution

Matter Labs hopes to solve this problem with their latest Layer 2 replication solution, ZK Sync. “ZK” refers to “zero-knowledge proof,” which is a security protocol using cryptography, hiding transaction data. This protocol has been proposed to help replicate efforts as it effectively reduces a large amount of information to its most essential parts.

It’s also worth noting that ZK Sync is a development based on the idea of ZK-Rollups introduced by Ethereum developer Barry Whitehat in 2018.

In a December 5 announcement, Matter Labs founder Alex Gluchowski said,

“The ZK Sync software is designed to bring VISA scale throughput to thousands of transactions per second (TPS) for Ethereum while keeping the money as safe as it is in basic L1 accounts and maintaining a high degree of censorship-resistance.”

With the help of ZK Rollup technology, the second layer solution can keep money in a smart contract on the mainchain while calculating and storing off-chain transactions.

ZK Rollup keeps the basic protocol’s security features. Therefore, validators can never damage the system or steal funds. Users will always be able to recover money even if the validator does not cooperate. And, not even a single trusted third party online network users to track blocks to prevent fraud.

Currently, the devnet for ZK Sync v0.1 is working and this is the first step to taking full advantage of the potential of this technology.

Ethereum has been struggling with congestion bottlenecks for the past few years. For example, the use of blockchain networks has surpassed 90% many times in 2019, making running applications and using them costly. The blockage is primarily a function of ETH’s 15 TPS bottleneck.

Even Vitalik Buterin, the Ethereum character, acknowledges the limitations that could prevent this blockchain from realizing its potential as a widely accepted world computer.

Now, time will tell whether Matter Labs’ second layer solution really solves the scalability issues that the Ethereum network is facing. And, carry a “VISA-scale throughput” of thousands of transactions per second.

Ethereum Istanbul

This network upgrade is named Istanbul. Network upgrades have been previously given to other names such as Costantinople, Spquil Dragon and Byzantium.

The network upgrade is changing the underlying Ethereum protocol, creating new rules to improve the system. The decentralized nature of blockchain systems makes network upgrades more difficult. Collaboration and communication with the community are necessary in upgrading the network in a blockchain, as well as with the developers of various Ethereum clients so that the transition goes smoothly.

Changes made in Istanbul are determined by EIP. Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIP) describes standards for the Ethereum platform. It includes core protocol specifications, client APIs and contract standards.