In this insightful discussion, Kevin Liu, CEO of ZKM, sheds light on the project's genesis and its mission to enhance blockchain interoperability. From Ethereum's influence to strategic expansion plans, Liu shares how ZKM's innovative approach could revolutionize decentralized finance.
Q1: What's the story behind ZKM? What propelled you to build this project?
Coming from a technical background, I realized the power of blockchain technology early on. However, it wasn't until the bear market of 2018 that I made a meaningful contribution to the sector by co-founding Token Economy Labs to study tokenomics. But it was the beginning of a deeper dive into the crypto space. As I gained a better understanding of the space, its vast potential, and what is limiting the industry from going forward, I co-founded the Ethereum Layer 2 Rollup platform Metis.
Ethereum has been critical to blockchain adoption by enabling the world to gain better access to financial services. While fundamentally important to the entire blockchain industry, the platform has issues that need to be tackled, which led to the creation of Metis and, later, ZKM in early 2023.
At ZKM, we have designed an interoperability network to unify the fragmented liquidity across blockchains based on our zero-knowledge virtual machine and decentralized sequencers. Our initial focus was on the development of what we term a 'Hybrid Rollup,' which is an upgrade of Metis and other Optimistic Rollups to a hybrid OP+ZK model. But we soon realized the potential of our zkVM, zkMIPS, extends far beyond that.
2. So, Ethereum is your sole focus?
While Ethereum has previously been central to our efforts, our vision extends far beyond it. We believe in a multi-chain future and aim to create a universal settlement network, using our zkVM and associated tech stack to provide a single, VM-agnostic solution to streamline interoperability and unite the fragmented blockchain world.
Existing interoperability solutions have only added complexity and insecurity for users. Traditionally, connecting different blockchain networks requires third-party 'bridges' to mediate transactions, creating potential risks in security, as demonstrated by numerous bridge hacks. We pioneered an interoperability design, termed 'Entangled Rollups,' which removes these risks by establishing direct connections between blockchains in a decentralized manner, allowing secure and direct exchanges without the use of intermediaries.
In short, our focus now encompasses all blockchains; on connecting them seamlessly and with a level of security that is unparalleled. Our ultimate goal is to unify the fragmented liquidity across multiple blockchain ecosystems completely.
3. What about Bitcoin, which is seeing a lot of buzz and activity lately?
Bitcoin is certainly no exception, on the contrary actually. I've been a close follower of Bitcoin since the early days, and it's, by and large, the most well-established blockchain in the space. But just as with Ethereum, Bitcoin has its problems with scaling, and high transaction fees often deem it impractical as a global P2P network. Realizing the need for a scaling solution that inherits the native security of Layer 1, we naturally decided to develop a uniquely innovative Bitcoin L2 as the first implementation of our Entangled Rollup design. After all, our goal is to position ZKM as the Universal Settlement Network for all blockchains, and what better place to start than Bitcoin?
This Bitcoin L2 will be supported with the entire Entangled Rollup framework and from the zkVM level, so both native security and sustainable yield will be its key features. This means that BTC holders can support the decentralized sequencer nodes on the main Bitcoin blockchain to secure and batch the transactions on the Bitcoin L2, potentially earning transaction revenue and mining rewards.
Furthermore, interconnection with Entangled Rollups can endow Bitcoin with a level of interoperability that was previously deemed unachievable, enabling BTC assets to move smoothly and securely to and from other ecosystems like Ethereum, Cosmos, Ton, and many more.
4. So, what's at the core of ZKM? What technical specifications back up your grand vision and mission statement?
As I previously mentioned, we have developed zkMIPS, an advanced general-purpose zkVM designed to verify on-chain that an MIPS program was correctly executed off-chain. It's composed of a sophisticated Prover to execute the MIPS program, a simple Verifier, and an equivalent verifier smart contract. In the context of our Entangled Rollups architecture, zkMIPS is used to verify the correctness of blockchain transactions, verify smart contract function calls, and validate new rollup states.
Because most off-chain and on-chain programming languages can be compiled down to MIPS, zkMIPS can execute computations regardless of the differences in blockchain virtual machines and their respective programming languages, which is one of the key reasons why this technology is optimal for facilitating blockchain interoperability. Additionally, Zero-knowledge proofs are the most secure and efficient way to facilitate message passing because they enable transactions to be processed off-chain, and the resulting transaction data can be quickly verified on-chain in a way that maintains high throughput and scalability for all of the blockchains involved.
Entangled Rollup networks will also leverage decentralized sequencers, which can bring native security to end users and fairness to batch producers. This is another critical component of our decentralized interoperability framework.
5. Now, what do you envision about ZKM's future and adoption?
To achieve widespread adoption, ZKM must leverage both its technological strengths and strategic business development. Our goal is to create network effects where the value of our zkVM increases with its demonstration as more developers begin to understand its enormous potential. Initially, we're focusing on key partnerships and integrations to optimize our tech stack, and in the future, this focus will shift more towards collaborations that help drive adoption.
Looking forward, our strategy includes building a major use case to showcase the capabilities of our tech stack. This approach mirrors the success of Optimism's L2, which drove the adoption of the OP Stack through practical demonstration of its value.
As we continue to grow, our focus will remain on unifying fragmented liquidity across multiple blockchain ecosystems. By building a robust, adaptable tech stack, we aim to enable universal settlement across all blockchains, driving long-term value and adoption to ZKM.
6. How do you see ZKM capturing long-lasting value and defeating its competition?
We recognize that crypto is a highly competitive environment and understand that maintaining market interest is challenging, especially in low-layer infra. We've spent a lot of time discussing this issue. Our findings reveal that, although our peers have also been making great progress in terms of technology, the key differentiator lies in having projects built on top of your tech stack.
By initially tapping into the dominant asset class of Bitcoin, with the largest idle sitting assets in the industry, we aim to really kickstart our adoption. To understand what is actually needed here, we sat with major Bitcoin holders and found that they generally have two concerns—the complete safety of their assets and a way to leverage them to generate yield. Our Bitcoin L2 design stands out by offering native security and sustainable yield.
So, starting with the top networks—Bitcoin and Ethereum—we'll move on to other major networks. Again, our ultimate goal is to consolidate all the segmented liquidity. With our proven track record, full-stack capabilities, and position ahead of the curve, we aim to transform the blockchain space truly.
