Ethereum scaling on the horizon: 20,000 transactions per second

Ethereum’s record high has its price: gas fees. With regular highs in transaction fees, the Ether rally was bought at a high price. But salvation is near.

US $ 2,392: Ethereum performance will have to measure itself against this new record for the near future. The second largest crypto currency has taken the momentum in the crypto market and placed itself on the top performers list of today’s trading with its new top value. In contrast to some mayflies that splash along in the Bitcoin fairway, the ether explosion is the result of an ecosystem that has matured over the years and represents one of the most important interfaces in the entire crypto space. But the upswing has a flaw.

The thing with the gas fees

Because the gas fees have also been at a record level for months. The Ethereum-Transaction fees currently on average. This means that the fees are US $ 20 below the annual high. However, normalization looks different. A year ago the fees averaged ten cents. And Ethereum should target this region again if it does not want to degenerate into a playground for technology-savvy high earners.

The Ethereum developers have not escaped the need for scaling solutions that relieve the network through higher transaction throughput. However, a few more moons could pass before “official” solutions reach Ethereum. The development to the 2.0 environment with the switch to Proof of Stake is in full swing in various test networks. Until all the puzzle pieces are fully developed and put together, should according to chief developer Vitalik Buterin but a good five years will pass.

However, Ethereum does not have that much time. The longer the exorbitant fees persist, the more market shares the developers are giving away. Projects like Cardano have already declared war on the top dog. Ethereum will not be able to rest forever on its monopoly position in the DeFi area and the new hype market NFT. The growth of the Binance Chain shows that investors and blockchain projects are gradually turning to alternatives.

Scaling is approaching

But salvation is near. A promising Layer 2 approach comes from Matter Labs. The youngest Blog post According to the developers have set up a “system with 20,000+ TPS (transactions per second)”. That would be a milestone for Ethereum. Current lifts the network around 15 transactions per second. Even Optimism’s scaling solution that loud Roadmap Should be mainnet-compatible in July, 1,000 to 4,000 TPS would not come close to the Matter Labs solution.

The platform behind it is called zkPorter, which Matter Labs is already promoting as the “engine for mass acceptance of cryptocurrencies”. The approach is based on the Zero Knowledge Proof process (ZK), in which individual transactions and smart contracts are initially coordinated on the Layer 2 layer and then processed in a bundled manner on the Ethereum Mainnet. To this end, the zkSync solution will in future be split into two parts: zkRollup with on-chain data availability and zkPorter with off-chain data availability.

Both parts will be composable and interoperable: contracts and accounts on the zkRollup side will be able to interact seamlessly with accounts on the zkPorter side and vice versa.

Matter Labs

In contrast to a linear increase in transaction throughput, the developers promise exponential scaling that will meet the requirements of exponential market growth in the long term. Still, ether enthusiasts have to be patient. Matter Labs expects mainnet integration via zkSync 2.0 in 6 months.