L2 Planet Issue #23
In this Issue of L2 Planet, we focused on the developments regarding Aztec, Optimism, zkSync, Polygon zkEVM, Arbitrum, and StarkNet Ecosystem.
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Aztec Ecosystem
Aztec Network sunsetting the Aztec Connect. Goodbye Aztec Connect, and welcome to the private Noir smart contracts enabled Aztec!
The deposits have been disabled to Aztec Connect, and withdrawals are now free. Users will have one year from today to withdraw with no fees, after which Aztec will no longer provide sequencing for Connect. Aztec Connect was newly built in June, and why is it deprecated now? Aztec Connect gives the opportunity for the Aztec team to test their limited product and collect feedback from the community. Also, the team open-sourced the entire Aztec Connect repo and will fund it if anyone fork and build on it.
Aztec’s main goal is to build a fully programmable encrypted zkRollup. So, the team focuses on Noir, the universal language of zero knowledge. The team will release more Noir features and a full set of specifications for their newest zkRollup in the first half of 2023. At the end of 2023, we will experience fully-featured Noir and local devnet for the next-gen Aztec Network.
What else happened in the last two weeks in the Aztec ecosystem?
Santiago Palladino joined as an Engineer to the Aztec Network team.
The second wave of the Aztec grants program is coming up in April.
Optimism Ecosystem
Optimism has been busy with governance-related things last two weeks. Bedrock update and RPGF (Retroactive Public Goods Funding) are still in process.
The voting period for the Bedrock update proposal will end in 9 days. 8.66m OP tokens have been voted for, and 3.4m OP tokens are left to reach quorum. As the L2 Planet team, we voted for it because we believe the Bedrock update will improve the network's security and add new features such as modularity, simplicity, and Ethereum equivalence to the L2 network.
That’s not all. Voting for RetroPGF 2 is officially closed! 71 community badgeholders voted and decided how 10m OP tokens will be distributed. Optimism will be sharing the results of RetroPGF 2 this week. The votes of individual badgeholders will remain private in order to preserve the integrity of the voting process.
What else happened in the last two weeks in the Optimism ecosystem?
The Bedrock Regolith issues with op-geth have been fixed, and the team have deployed a new image.
Optimism Agora, the new Optimism Governance Portal, built by Agora, have been introduced.
Optimism have published a blog post about Optimism’s Path to Technical Decentralization.
The Bedrock upgrade will introduce a new two-step withdrawal process to the Optimism Mainnet bridge. Vex explained how.
Clique added a frontend UI to their zk-powered Discord role attestation, which ~30k users have already used.
Arcadia Finance, on-chain margin trading DEX, is live on Optimism.
Polynomial, a decentralized perpetual protocol, is live on Optimism.
zkSync Ecosystem
Validity Rollup with EVM support, zkSync Era, it’s open to all users!
on 24 March, zkSync announced zkSync Era Mainnet Alpha was going public. Developers, projects, and users can now experience the power of zkEVM. With this announcement, zkSync became the first zkEvm network on the mainnet that is open to users. Don’t forget zkSync’s zkEVM is a type-4 zkEVM.
zkSync Era comes with native AA (Account Abstraction), LLVM compiler, and data compression. What means this for users and developers? Account abstraction allows developers to build more users friendly projects and users to have better experiences. For example, you are playing a game on zkSync Era. Every action you take in-game needs a message sign on your favorite wallet. Thanks to AA, you probably will sign only once and do not need to sign every time. Data compression reduces transaction fees for users, but it’s not a reduction as EIP-4844 does. The LLVM compiler of zkSync allows developers to write smart contracts in different languages, such as Vyper and Solidity.
What is next? zkSync will become battle-tested when more users use it and more developers build on it. The decentralization of the network and zkPorter are the next milestones we are waiting for. Wen $ZKS or $ZSC?
What else happened in the last two weeks in the zkSync ecosystem?
Decentralized web3 gaming and innovation protocol, XLA, is coming to zkSync Era.
NFT marketplace zkEagles announced its arrival on zkSync Era.
SpaceFi, a cross-chain web3 platform, announced the launch of its products to zkSync Era.
Global cryptocurrency exchange LBank Exchange announced their support for zkSync Era.
Polygon zkEVM
After the zkSync front-run Polygon zkEVM’s mainnet launch, Polygon zkEVM mainnet goes live on March 27.
on March 28, Vitalik Buterin made the first symbolic transaction on Polygon zkEVM. "A few million constraints for man, unconstrained scalability for mankind" -Vitalik Buterin.
Polygon zkEVM’s entire codebase is fully open-source. Every single component is licensed with AGPL v3, including the zkProver, which is where all of the ZK magic happens. Polygon zkEVM is externally audited by Hexen and Spearbit and internally by the Polygon team. Even with audits, undetected bugs may happen. So, users and developers should be aware of the risks.
What is your choice, anon? Polygon zkEVM or zkSync Era?
Arbitrum Ecosystem
Here comes the sun! The rise of Arbitrum Foundation and Arbitrum governance. ARB token just airdropped arbinouts. The wait is over.
![Twitter avatar for @arbitrum](https://substackcdn.com/image/twitter_name/w_96/arbitrum.jpg)
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_600,h_314,c_fill,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9bcb7beb-1ec5-4270-8d8b-28b13afed3d4_927x499.png)
On 23 March, the freshly created Arbitrum Foundation announced the ARB token. %12.5 of the total 10B ARB token supply is allocated for an airdrop to users. More than 620k users were eligible for the airdrop, and %80 of addresses claimed it. Reminder, you have six months to claim your tokens. We have earned it, arbinouts!
That’s not all. Arbitrum Orbit, customized Layer-3 chains on Arbitrum using Arbitrum stack announced. Arbitrum Orbit also will support Stylus, a feature that allows developers to write smart contracts in their favorite languages, including Rust, C, and C++. Developers can easily and permissionlessly launch their own L3 thanks to Arbitrum governance. DAO governance is authorized to give free and perpetual licenses for L3 to developers. Do they have to wait for a license to build Layer-3? The answer is yes and no. Let’s dive deep into Arbitrum DAO governance.
The Arbitrum DAO is a self-executing DAO which means DAO’s votes about on-chain actions will directly have the power to effect and execute its on-chain decisions, without relying on an intermediary to carry out those decisions. What happens if a malicious upgrade is submitted and voted on? To protect the protocol from malicious upgrades, the voting period will be a minimum of 21-37 days. What happens if a critical bug is found in smart contracts and needs to be upgraded immediately? The Arbitrum Foundation also established the Arbitrum Security Council, a 12-member multisig of highly regarded community representatives designed to ensure the security of the chains and be able to act quickly in the event of a security vulnerability. In case of emergency, the Arbitrum Security Council will be able to act swiftly, but this will require participation from 9 of the 12 members.
According to the announcement, with the mechanism Arbitrum DAO works, Arbitrum has become the first EVM rollup ever to achieve the second of the three stages which proposed a 3 stage schema for classifying the maturity of rollups by Vitalik Buterin.
What else happened in the last two weeks in the Arbitrum ecosystem?
Arbitrum have been partnered with ANIMUS, to bring and support Art Collectives to the Arbitrum ecosystem.
The audited version v1.0 of Numeon, a leverage protocol on any token, is live on Arbitrum.
MEEET, a new social relationship-based gaming platform, will be launching on Arbitrum soon.
Zeeverse, A F2P monster-tamer MMORPG set in an indigenous fantasy world, is coming to Arbitrum.
Users can now build and deploy smart contracts to Arbitrum Nova through the
KuCoin Wallet have been announced its integration with Arbitrum.
POKAVZ, a web3 Texas Hold'em Metaverse game by web3games, is coming to Arbitrum.
Siren Protocol, a DeFi options protocol, have been announced its migration to Arbitrum.
NiftyKit, a no-code solution for NFT smart contracts, now supports minting on Arbitrum Nova.
Orosign and Orand by Orochi Network are fully integrated with Arbitrum.
Blowfish, a Proactive defense for web3 wallets, have been announced its support on Arbitrum.
Cryptex, a decentralized perpetual protocol, have been announced its v2.
Pirate Nation have been announced its migration to Arbitrum Nova.
Starknet Ecosystem
Starknet Alpha v0.11.0, the transition to Cairo 1.0, is live on testnet and soon on mainnet.
OpenZeppelin are starting to develop contracts for Cairo 1.0.
Token Flow Insights have been announced an on-chain data analytics partnership with Argent.
Fibrous Finance have been completed the batch swap feature and will be available on testnet ASAP.
Twitter Corner
![Twitter avatar for @doganeth_en](https://substackcdn.com/image/twitter_name/w_96/doganeth_en.jpg)
![Image](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_600,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fpbs.substack.com%2Fmedia%2FFsKrRACWwAArH7f.jpg)
![Twitter avatar for @0xJim](https://substackcdn.com/image/twitter_name/w_96/0xJim.jpg)
![Image](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_600,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fpbs.substack.com%2Fmedia%2FFr9imQtaUAAFshR.jpg)
![Twitter avatar for @MetisDAO](https://substackcdn.com/image/twitter_name/w_96/MetisDAO.jpg)
Spectating Corner
Reading Corner
European Parliament passes EU digital wallet legislation, The Block
Why does the location of your validator matter?, zkValidator
Arbitrum: The Next Phase Of Decentralization, Arbitrum
Starknet Decentralized Protocol VII - Chained Proof Protocols & Braiding, Ilia
That’s all from L2 Planet for now, hope to see you in 15 days :)