ZK Roll-ups vs ZK Compression: Exploring the Dynamics

9 min readJul 4, 2024

Blockchains, the ingenious tech behind crypto, has always faced a hurdle: scalability. Imagine a bustling city with gridlocked streets. That’s blockchains during high volume — slow, clogged and expensive.

This article explores two groundbreaking solutions, ZK roll-ups (Ethereum) vs ZK Compression (Solana), that aim to shatter these limitations. We’ll explore their inner workings and how they seek to transform their respective Blockchain experience.

ZK-Rollups: Scaling Ethereum with Zero-Knowledge Proofs

Ethereum, the leading platform for decentralized applications (dApps), has faced a significant challenge in recent years. The high volume of transactions often leads to network congestion, resulting in slow processing times and exorbitant gas fees. This bottleneck hinders the widespread adoption of dApps and threatens Ethereum’s long-term viability.

ZK roll-ups, an innovative layer-2 scaling solution, are a promising answer to Ethereum’s scalability woes. By leveraging the power of zero-knowledge proofs, ZK roll-ups can significantly increase transaction throughput while maintaining the security of the Ethereum mainnet.

Understanding the Core Concept: Zero-Knowledge Proofs

Imagine proving you know the answer to a question without revealing the answer itself. That’s the essence of zero-knowledge proofs! In the context of zk-rollups, these cryptographic proofs allow the verification of the validity of a batch of transactions without disclosing the individual transactions themselves. This significantly reduces the data stored on the Ethereum Chain, leading to faster and cheaper transactions.

How ZK Roll-ups Work on Ethereum

Here’s a breakdown of the core functionalities of ZK roll-ups on the Ethereum network:

Batching Transactions: Instead of processing transactions one by one on the main net, ZK roll-ups bundle them into batches off-chain. This significantly reduces the load on the Ethereum blockchain.
Off-chain Computation: A designated computer program, a sequencer, executes these transactions off-chain. This frees up valuable resources on the mainnet for crucial tasks like security and consensus.
Validity Proofs: But how do we ensure the off-chain computations are accurate? Zk Roll-ups leverage a powerful cryptographic tool called zero-knowledge proofs (ZK-SNARK or ZK-STARK). These proofs mathematically demonstrate that the transactions were executed correctly without revealing the actual details.
Back to the Mainnet: The sequencer submits a compressed representation of the processed transactions and the validity proof to Ethereum.
Verification on Mainnet: Ethereum validators don’t need to re-execute the entire batch. Instead, they verify the validity proof, ensuring the transactions were processed correctly and haven’t been tampered with.
Settlement: If the proof is valid, the updated state of the roll-up (essentially, the outcome of the transactions) is recorded on the mainnet. This guarantees the immutability and security of the transactions.

Benefits of ZK-Rollups

By processing transactions off-chain, zk-rollups can handle a significantly higher volume of transactions compared to the Ethereum mainnet. This translates to faster transaction processing times.
With less congestion on the mainnet, gas fees plummet, making dApps more accessible and affordable for users.
zk-rollups inherit the security of the Ethereum mainnet. The validity proofs ensure the integrity of the transactions, and the Ethereum chain serves as a secure settlement layer for disputes.
zk-rollups offer a level of privacy by not revealing the details of individual transactions within the validity proofs.

However the potential drawdowns of the technology is that it can be more complex to develop and implement and there’s Potential centralization risks depending on the design.

ZK Compression: Shrinking Data and Costs, While Scaling the Network

Solana, While known for its lightning-fast transaction speeds, is pushing the boundaries of blockchain scalability with ZK Compression. As with any blockchain, storing data on-chain can become expensive as the network grows. To address this challenge, Light Protocol and Helius lab introduced ZK Compression, a new primitive that significantly reduces storage costs for developers building applications on the platform. What does this mean for you and me? Solana’s state and compute are getting an upgrade with ZK Compression.

Understanding ZK Compression

At its core, ZK Compression utilizes state compression, essentially shrinking account data on the blockchain. Think of it like zipping a file — it takes less space without compromising the information. This translates to substantial cost savings for storing data on Solana. The presence of Zero-knowledge proofs allows the system to verify the accuracy and completeness of the compressed data without revealing the actual content.

Imagine your phone’s storage overflowing with photos (blockchain data). Upgrading (scaling) is expensive!
ZK Compression is like a magic shrink ray for these photos (data). It makes them smaller (reduces storage costs) without losing any details (keeps it secure). This frees up space for more photos (allows more apps to be built).
It’s a new tech (still under development), but it could be a game-changer!

Image Credit: https://www.zkcompression.com/

How Does ZK Compression Work on Solana?

Here’s a breakdown of the key functionalities

Data Compression: Instead of storing all account data directly on-chain, ZK Compression keeps only a “fingerprint” of the data called a state root. ( The state root is the unique identifier of the compressed data stored directly on-chain.) This fingerprint is much smaller than the original data, significantly reducing storage costs.
Secure Storage: The compressed data is stored in a cheaper location on the Solana ledger. This separation ensures data integrity and security while keeping costs low.
Zero-Knowledge Proofs: To verify the integrity of the compressed data without revealing the actual content, ZK Compression utilizes zero-knowledge proofs.
Interaction with Compressed Accounts: Developers can still interact with compressed accounts through their programs. When needed, validity proofs retrieved from the RPC providers supporting ZK Compression are used to ensure the validity of the data.

While ZK Compression has the potential drawdown of being a newer technology with less established security track record and Potentially limited interoperability with other blockchains, it has several other key benefits to the Solana Ecosystem.

Benefits of ZK Compression on Solana

Reduced Costs: By shrinking account sizes, developers can create applications with significantly lower storage fees.
Faster Transactions: With less data to process, Solana’s breakneck transaction speed gets an upgrade
Security and Performance: It Leverages Solana’s existing security mechanisms and leverages the ledger for data availability, ensuring a secure and performant experience for developers and users.

A recent Tweet by the CEO of Helius Labs announcing this Innovation showcases the dramatic cost reduction potential of ZK Compression on Solana. Distributing airdrops to one million users can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars (around $260,000) solely for storage fees. However, ZK Compression can slash this cost to a mere $50! This represents a staggering 5,200x decrease in expenses.

This breakthrough technology could indeed become a game-changer for projects aiming to attract a large user base.

Key Differences Between ZK Roll-ups (Ethereum) and ZK Compression (Solana)

While ZK roll-ups and ZK Compression aim to improve scalability and efficiency on their respective blockchains, they achieve this differently.

Here’s a breakdown of their key differences

Use Cases: ZK Roll-ups

ZK Roll-ups offer a broader range of use cases due to their established nature and focus on scalability. Here are some current and potential use cases for ZK roll-ups:

Current Use Cases

Gaming and Metaverse Applications: Fast and affordable transactions are crucial for a seamless gaming and metaverse experience. ZK roll-ups are being explored by projects like Immutable X to enable smooth gameplay and in-game asset ownership.
Payments and Microtransactions: The high fees on the Ethereum mainnet make microtransactions impractical. Payment solutions utilizing ZK roll-ups tech facilitate low-cost and scalable payment solutions, paving the way for broader crypto adoption in everyday transactions.
Decentralized Finance: ZK roll-ups are well-suited for DeFi applications due to their ability to handle high-frequency transactions with lower fees compared to the main chain. This can be particularly beneficial for swapping tokens, providing liquidity, and margin trading. Existing ZK roll-up solutions like Loopring are already facilitating DeFi activities.

Potential Use Cases: ZK roll-ups

Supply Chain Management: The immutability and auditability of ZK roll-ups make them ideal for tracking the movement of goods and materials in a supply chain. This can enhance transparency and efficiency within complex supply chain networks.
Data Privacy and Sharing: ZK roll-ups can enable the development of privacy-preserving applications where users can share data ‘selectively’ while maintaining control over who can access it. This could revolutionize data ownership and usage models in the digital age.
Decentralized Insurance: ZK roll-ups could enable efficient and cost-effective claim processing in decentralized insurance. Claim details and verification could be batched off-chain, with zk-proofs verifying validity on the main chain. This could lead to faster claims and lower premiums.

Use case: ZK Compression

Since ZK compression is a relatively newer technology, real-world adoption in dApps has yet to be seen. However, Its ability to significantly reduce storage costs opens doors for a broader range of applications requiring efficient and scalable blockchain data management.

Here are a few exciting possibilities:

Improved Efficiency for Existing Applications: Existing applications on Solana can benefit from ZK Compression by migrating frequently accessed data to compressed accounts. This can lead to lower storage costs and faster transaction processing for these applications.
Internet of Things (IoT) Integration: The ever-growing number of IoT devices connecting to blockchains presents a storage challenge. ZK Compression can help integrate many IoT devices by reducing the storage burden associated with their data.
Scalable Data-Rich Applications: Imagine applications that manage vast amounts of data on-chain, like supply chain platforms tracking product journeys or healthcare systems storing patient records. ZK Compression can significantly reduce storage costs for these applications, making large-scale data management on-chain more feasible.

Overall, ZK Compression goes beyond just the costs for airdrops. As the technology matures, we can expect even more innovative use cases to emerge. It will be interesting to see how developers leverage this technology in the future.

Is ZK Compression an L2?

The “L2 debate” surrounding ZK Compression is a valid point to consider. While it demonstrably reduces the amount of data stored directly on-chain, it doesn’t necessarily move data completely off-chain like some Layer 2 solutions. The compressed data resides in a separate, cheaper storage area within the Solana ledger. Additionally, ZK Compression doesn’t offload transaction execution or computation. This means it relies more heavily on Solana’s Security compared to most traditional L2 roll-ups.

Both technologies aim to improve the scalability of their respective Blockchains, albeit in different ways, but they also have several key differences. According to this tweet response by Toly, the Cofounder of Solana Labs, Unlike an L2, ZK Compression doesn’t need a security council multisig, users don’t need to switch chain IDs, doesn’t need a governance token, doesn’t need an external sequencer, Solana validators still get all the transaction fees.

“It’s like an L2 but without all the things that people complain about L2.”

However, The debate around ZK Compression being an L2 might be settled with a more precise definition of L2 functionalities in the future.

Ultimately, the classification might be less important than the technology’s effectiveness in achieving scalability and cost reduction.

Final Thoughts and Perspective

Currently, ZK Roll-ups seem more established, but ZK Compression is hot on its heels as they represent significant advancements in blockchain scalability, each offering unique advantages and potential use cases. However, when considering which technology holds more incredible future promises, let’s glance at ZK roll-up’s Edge and ZK Compression’s potential.

Current Edge: ZK roll-ups have a head start with established deployments, proven security (inheriting from Ethereum), and strong composability. This makes them ideal for trust-critical applications like DeFi and NFTs.

ZK Compression’s Potential: While newer, ZK Compression offers significant cost savings through data storage reduction; As the technology matures and adoption increases, the cost savings associated with the data storage could change how developers approach blockchain applications. Furthermore, advancements in interoperability could bridge the gap between ZK Compression and other blockchains.

Looking Ahead

While ZK Roll-ups hold the upper hand now, ZK Compression’s potential for the future is undeniable. Ultimately, the most promising technology depends on the specific needs of the application being developed, and there’s a strong possibility that both technologies will co-exist and thrive, forming a powerful toolkit for developers building the next generation of scalable and efficient blockchain applications.

As both ZK Roll-ups and ZK Compression evolve, their capabilities might change, potentially altering this perspective.

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