Polygon Unveils Plonky3: Next-Gen Modular Toolkit for zkVMs and zkEVMs

• Polygon has launched Plonky3, a tool specifically designed for developers.
• The layer-2 scaling solution has continued to evolve to boost end-user experience.

The Polygon blockchain has unveiled Plonky3 as the next-generation zero-knowledge (zk) modular toolkit in the Decentralized Finance (DeFi) ecosystem. Polygon Labs announced on its official X account that the Plonky3 is now available for production use, licensed under MIT/Apache.

Offerings of Polygon Plonky3

According to the announcement, Polygon Plonky3 has been used by Succinct Labs in its SP1 zero-knowledge Virtual Machine (zkVM). As previously mentioned in our report, Plonky3 provides super-performant zk-proving, while SP1 removes the complexity for developers. This implies, indirectly, that every project building subsequently with these zkVMs is also developing on Plonky3.

the next-gen zk proving system has landed—Polygon Plonky3 is production ready and open-source.

already powering @SuccinctLabs’ SP1 zkVM, Polygon Plonky3 provides super-performant zk-proving, while SP1 abstracts away the complexity for devs.

continue the thread for more. pic.twitter.com/RubcRkB34M

— Polygon | Aggregated (@0xPolygon) July 16, 2024

Polygon Plonky3 is entirely different from the earlier iteration, Plonky2. Tailored for recursion on consumer hardware, the assets of Plonky2 were installed to speed up distinct blockchain operations. The mission of Plonky2 is to bring scalability to Ethereum by supporting ZK Rollups, optimized for hardware and recursion as noted in our earlier post. 

Plonky2, while praised as a fast-proving mechanism, is only applied in small-prime fields, which severely restricts the technology. Recognizing this limitation, Polygon Labs has created Plonky3 as a modular toolkit for building zkVMs and zkEVMs that are utilized for specific cases. 

Rather than proving a single blockchain system, Plonky3 was developed to contain many operations. By doing so, developers can now freely extend the cryptographic security provided by ZK by building use-case-specific zkVMs and zkEVMs. 

This means a developer requiring speed would configure a different Polygon Plonky3 from a developer that requires the smallest proof size. In practicality, ZK developers can mix and match to build a zkVM or zkEVM that best fits the blockchain application.

The development of Polygon Plonky3 is a continuation of Polygon Labs’ broader commitment to open-source ZK-powered technology. Polygon believes this is the only way to achieve verifiable off-chain computation. Notably, a proving system is a mathematical framework that ensures a transaction is correctly executed or that a blockchain’s state has been updated properly. 

The Polygon ecosystem continues to undergo various upgrades in a bid to improve transactions for users. Recently, the blockchain network announced the launch of the Miden Alpha Testnet V3, a zkEVM rollup. As we discussed earlier, the aim is to improve the blockchain by allowing the creation and implementation of zk proofs.

MATIC’s Price Action

MATIC, the native token of the Polygon network, has recently seen improvements in its on-chain metrics, potentially impacting its market performance. 

This is despite a recent increase in activity from large investors (whales). According to our recent post, Polygon whales reportedly sold millions of MATIC tokens, creating concerns about its short-term market performance.

As of this writing, MATIC has increased by 3.5% in the past 24 hours, to trade at $0.5506. The trading volume, however, decreased by 9.8% to $254 million.