About ZKsync Era

ZKsync Era is a Layer 2 rollup built with the ZK Stack, designed to scale Ethereum using zero-knowledge proofs while preserving its security. It was the first chain launched with the ZK Stack and the first member of the Elastic Network, which now includes over 15 interconnected ZK chains.

Architecture

ZKsync Era operates as a zero-knowledge rollup (ZK rollup). It executes transactions off-chain, aggregates them into batches, and generates a succinct zero-knowledge validity proof to verify all state changes. This proof is then submitted to Ethereum, ensuring correctness and finality while reducing gas costs.

Era uses the EraVM, a high-performance virtual machine that is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). Developers can deploy existing Solidity or Vyper contracts on Era with minimal or no changes.

Core Components

• Sequencer — Orders and executes transactions off-chain to produce state updates.
• Prover — ZKsync Era uses the Boojum prover. It generates validity proofs for batches of transactions.
• Verifier — A smart contract on Ethereum that verifies proofs and finalizes state transitions.
• EraVM — Executes smart contracts bytecode with additional optimizations for ZK proof generation.

Position in the Ecosystem

ZKsync Era forms the foundation of the Elastic Network, a growing set of ZKsync chains that interoperate through shared proofs and trustless bridging. As the first ZKsync chain, it serves as the main hub for the ecosystem’s activity and infrastructure.

Era is where the ZK token was initially deployed and where on-chain governance takes place, making it the coordination layer for protocol upgrades and community decision-making. Because of its early launch and adoption, ZKsync Era integrates with major exchanges, infrastructure providers such as Chainlink and Tenderly, and hosts deployments from many leading DeFi protocols.

These integrations, assets, and tools will be accessible to other ZKsync chains through ZKsync Connect, ensuring that all chains in the Elastic Network benefit from access to the same liquidity, infrastructure, and ecosystem support while maintaining independent execution environments.

Developer Experience

ZKsync Era provides an Ethereum-equivalent development environment, making it straightforward to build, test, and deploy applications thanks to the EVM Bytecode Interpreter.

Common Ethereum development tools—such as Hardhat, Foundry, and Remix—work out of the box. Developers can interact with Era through the same JSON-RPC interface, enabling integration with wallets, SDKs, and dApps without special configurations.

User Experience

For end users, transactions on ZKsync Era offer faster confirmations and significantly lower fees compared to Ethereum mainnet. Era also supports native account abstraction, enabling smart wallets, flexible fee payments using ERC-20 tokens, and features like paymasters for gas sponsorship.