Ethereum’s proto-danksharding set to reduce rollup costs by tenfold, according to Consensys zkEVM Linea.

Zero-knowledge proof (ZK-proofs) solutions have been essential in scaling the Ethereum ecosystem, with proto-danksharding anticipated to significantly lower the expenses associated with rollups, as stated by Consensys’ zkEVM Linea lead Nicolas Liochon.

In an exclusive interview with Cointelegraph Magazine editor Andrew Fenton during Korea Blockchain Week, Liochon projected that proto-danksharding could decrease rollup costs by a factor of 10.

Proto-danksharding, referred to by its improvement proposal identifier EIP-4844, aims to lower the expenses for rollups, which generally aggregate transactions and data off-chain before submitting computational proof to the Ethereum blockchain.

The Ethereum Foundation has not yet finalized a projected launch date for proto-danksharding, although development and testing are still in progress.

Liochon noted that Linea offers transactions that are 15 times less expensive compared to those conducted on Ethereum’s layer one; however, rollups remain constrained by the requirement that transactions are recorded in calldata within Ethereum blocks.

As per Ethereum’s documentation, rollups continue to incur high costs due to the fact that calldata is processed by all Ethereum nodes, and the data is retained on-chain indefinitely, even though it only needs to be accessible for a limited duration.

EIP-4844 will introduce data blocks that can be sent and appended to blocks. The information stored in blobs will not be accessible to the Ethereum Virtual Machine and will be purged after a specified time frame – a change expected to significantly lower transaction costs.

“In reality, the cost of rollups is down to data availability. We are writing all the data to layer one which is why we have exactly the same security. But it’s expensive, it represents 95% of the cost.”

Liochon indicated that Linea’s prover, which primarily manages the off-chain computation that verifies, bundles, and subsequently generates a cryptographic proof of the aggregated transactions, accounts for only one-fifth of the total cost.

This underscores the significant challenge in establishing ZK-rollups as the preferred scaling solution for the Ethereum ecosystem, in contrast to alternatives like Optimistic rollups.

Liochon also mentioned that Linea aspires to be a versatile ZK-rollup intended for a range of decentralized applications and solutions within the Ethereum ecosystem.

"We are a generic rollup. We don't want to have a specific use case or specific domain. It's quite important to support all types of applications, including DeFi, gaming, and social."

As previously reported by Cointelegraph, Consensys successfully launched Linea in August 2023, onboarding over 150 partners and facilitating the bridging of more than $26 million in ETH.

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