Source: Darren, Everest Ventures Group

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To solve the scalability problem of Ethereum, Layer2 was born. Among many Layer2 solutions, Rollup is currently the most popular solution. Rollup can be divided into two types: Optimistic Rollup and ZK Rollup. Compared with Optimistic Rollup, ZK Rollup has advantages in security, speed, and gas fees. However, there is a major flaw in the current production of ZK Rollup, which is the inability to fully support the general computation of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), but mainly optimized for specific applications. This undermines compatibility with existing Ethereum L1 smart contracts and decentralized applications (dapps), and further increases the difficulty of building new contracts with the same composability and expressive experience.

Compared to ZK Rollup, Optimistic Rollup is compatible with Ethereum's EVM smart contracts. Therefore, for developers, migrating smart contracts to Layer2 is relatively simple, which is also the main reason why Optimistic Rollup has become the mainstream Layer2 solution instead of ZK Rollup.

Therefore, to solve the compatibility issue between ZK Rollup and EVM, ZK-EVM was born, and the protagonist of this article, Linea, is a Type 2 ZK-EVM in ZK-EVM Types that can be equivalent to EVM. It allows developers to build scalable decentralized applications or directly migrate existing dapps without changing code or rewriting smart contracts.

This article will conduct an in-depth analysis of Linea from five aspects: project type, competitive analysis, project highlights, ecological development, project progress, and future plans.

One, Project Introduction

Linea is an innovative blockchain solution that combines powerful zero-knowledge proof functionality with full Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) equivalence. It allows developers to build scalable decentralized applications (dapps) or migrate existing dapps without the need to change code or rewrite smart contracts, greatly simplifying the development process. Linea is built by ConsenSys and is one of the Type 2 zkEVMs, leveraging the scalability properties of zkEVM to provide faster transaction times and higher throughput. zkEVM is the zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) version of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), ensuring that transactions and smart contract executions are verified without leaking any sensitive information. This not only enhances security, but also achieves a more scalable and efficient platform.

In the fourth quarter of 2022, ConsenSys launched the Linea internal test version, which provided early access to limited users, processed over 350,000 transactions, and deployed various decentralized applications. The test network allows Solidity developers to build, test, and launch DApps, while also testing zkEVM on a large scale.

On March 28, 2023, Linea launched its public testnet and released zkEVM rollup to conduct stress tests on Layer2 scaling technology. During the public testnet period, approximately 5.5 million unique wallets executed over 46 million transactions.

On July 18th, Linea launched the Alpha version of its mainnet. As of July 24th, the Linea mainnet has over 100 ecological projects, with a total of 10,921 ETH and 64,604 transactions. The number of interacting addresses has reached 58,344.

According to Linea's global business leader @hotpot_dao, after the mainnet goes live, Linea plans to focus on developing two directions: Layer3 and Appchain, to meet the needs of game project parties for throughput and peer-to-peer transactions, while further promoting cooperation on Multi Prover.

二、背景团队

translates to

2. Background Team

Linea is developed and operated by ConsenSys, a leading Ethereum software company founded in 2014 with a global presence. ConsenSys employs top entrepreneurs, computer scientists, protocol engineers, software developers, and enterprise delivery experts. As one of the largest and most foundational entities in the blockchain technology field, ConsenSys' global personnel, projects, and company network are building development tools, decentralized applications, and solutions for enterprises and governments determined to harness the power of Ethereum in the blockchain industry. The organization was named "the most famous and widespread decentralized application developer and promoter in the Ethereum community" by The New Yorker in 2018. The current product suite consists of Infura, Quorum, Truffle, Codefi, MetaMask, and Diligence.

Joseph Lubin is a co-founder of Ethereum and the founder of ConsenSys. Lubin was born and raised in Toronto, Canada, and graduated from Princeton University with degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He previously developed autonomous music composition tools at Tomandandy Music's Princeton Robotics Lab and autonomous mobile robots at private research company Vision Applications Inc. Lubin focuses on the intersection of cryptography, engineering, and finance.

Three, ZK EVM Type Analysis

As mentioned earlier, Linea belongs to one of the four types of zkEVM, which is Type 2. So what are these four types? And what are their respective characteristics? Vitalik provided an overview of the zkEVM types based on Ethereum compatibility in his blog post.

Before reading the following, it is important to note that: the closer zkEVM is to Ethereum's functionality, the slower the generation of zk proofs and the higher the cost. On the other hand, if a blockchain or Rollup is more in line with Ethereum's specifications and standards, developers will find it easier to build applications on it and integrate it into the Ethereum ecosystem. Therefore, blockchains that are highly compatible with Ethereum may have a competitive advantage.

Type 1: Identical to Ethereum's Zk rollups, accurately replicating Ethereum in all aspects (including hash, state tree, transaction tree, precompilation, or any other consensus logic). Currently, there are no zkEVMs that can achieve equivalence with Ethereum, but Taiko's ultimate goal is to achieve Ethereum equivalence, so theoretically it can be classified as this type.

Second type (Type 2): Zk rollups that are fully equivalent to EVM, but not completely equivalent to Ethereum. They are fully compatible with existing applications, but have made some minor modifications to Ethereum to make development easier and proof generation faster. Linea currently belongs to this category.

Third type (Type 3): Almost identical to EVM, sacrificing more elements and equivalence for faster proof generation. Polygon zkEVM and Scroll currently belong to this category. This category is usually a stepping stone to entering the second category.

Fourth Type (Type 4): High-level language equivalence, meaning that they all accept smart contracts written in Solidity and then convert them into another custom language suitable for Zk. zkSync and StarkNet belong to this category, although zkSync may add compatibility with EVM bytecode over time and eventually transition to higher types Type 3/Type 2.

Please note that these different categories are not superior or inferior to each other, mainly based on the choice of different technologies and the speed of proof generation for development trade-offs, and they can also be converted to each other.

As a Type 2 Linea, it is completely equivalent to EVM. Unlike Type 3 and Type 4 projects, if the project party has a Dapp on the mainnet, it can be directly migrated to Linea without any code changes, just a one-click conversion to use Linea's Layer2 protocol. However, if you want to migrate to Type 4 StarkNet, you need a compiler and an additional step, which may introduce security issues and additional development costs.

As far as current technology is concerned, Type 2 is easier to implement than Type 1. Linea has already launched its mainnet, while Taiko, the Type 1 project, has not yet announced its mainnet launch time. This suggests that Type 2 may be more realistic, while Type 1 is relatively idealistic and its project is relatively early.

Four, Linea vs other zkEVM

1. Financial Aspect:

Regarding financing, Linea has not conducted separate project financing, but its parent company ConsenSys has received a financing of 726 million US dollars, and the funds are abundant. At the same time, ConsenSys' subsidiary project MetaMask is the undisputed leader in the wallet track, providing strong support for Linea while bringing considerable profits to ConsenSys.

Other zkEVM projects have also received significant funding: zkSync received $458 million, StarkNet received $273 million, Polygon zkEVM received $450 million, Scroll received $83 million, and Taiko received $22 million. Compared to others, Linea has sufficient funding and strong background support, making it one of the leaders in the zkEVM field in terms of funding.

2、Technical Aspect:

In terms of technology, Linea has the advantage of Type 2 (which is currently not fully 100% compatible and is in the transition phase from Type 2 to Type 3. The specific progress of the project will be detailed in Part 7) and has EVM equivalence. It can be fully equivalent to the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), so developers can build scalable decentralized applications or directly migrate existing decentralized applications without modifying code or rewriting smart contracts.

In addition, Linea uses a unique prover (which will be detailed in Part 5) to increase transaction speed and reduce Gas fees while ensuring compatibility.

However, due to the inherent difficulty of zk-rollup in being compatible with EVM, Linea's transaction speed is relatively slower and gas fees are slightly higher compared to Type 4 and Type 3 zkEVM projects such as zkSync, StarkNet, and Polygon zkEVM, while maintaining a high level of compatibility.

Other technologies are shown in the following figure:

3、Data Aspect:

Note: Due to Scroll and Taiko not being launched on the mainnet, they will be replaced by Arbitrum and OP Mainnet.

Data source:

[1]https://dune.com/gopimanchurian/arbitrum

[2]https://dune.com/gm365/L2

[3]https://dune.com/optimismfnd/Optimism-Overview

[4]https://dune.com/KARTOD/zk-evm-mega-dashboard

[5]https://dune.com/tk-research/linea

The above chart shows the relevant data of various zkEVM projects. It should be noted that Linea's mainnet has just launched, so its data is currently not significant and is only for reference.

As shown in the chart, zkSync is in a clear leading position in terms of data. However, it should be noted that Web3 data is subject to a considerable degree of unreliability, with many of the data contributed by airdrop hunters. Nevertheless, this also reflects more people's optimism towards the project.

Another reason why zkSync is far ahead in data is that shortly before its mainnet went live, another Layer2 solution called Arbitrum, which belongs to the same track, issued tokens and airdropped them to many users, allowing many airdrop hunters to earn substantial profits. This situation boosted the enthusiasm of Web3 users and prompted zkSync's mainnet to attract nearly 100,000 independent wallets in just three days. At the current stage, the market is undoubtedly in a bear market, with a sluggish market and a cold market atmosphere. Many users choose to wait and see, so relatively speaking, Linea, which has just launched its mainnet, has not been as popular as zkSync's mainnet launch, attracting less than 25,000 independent wallets in the first three days.

In addition, currently only Polygon zkEVM has its own token, which may be one of the reasons why its data is relatively inferior to zkSync Era and StarkNet. After all, this means that Polygon zkEVM has no airdrop expectations and cannot attract community contributors to provide data.

Finally, the chart shows that in the entire Layer2 track market share, zkSync Era has an absolute leading position with 4.27%, followed by StarkNet, while Linea is only 0.24%, nearly 20 times less than zkSync Era. It can be seen that if Linea wants to stand out among many zkEVM projects, it will inevitably need to make more efforts.

Five, what are the highlights of Linea?

1. Linea can achieve seamless integration with ConsenSys' native products such as Infura, MetaMask, and Truffle:

Builders can easily attract users using the web3 wallet MetaMask. For example, in the network selection of the MetaMask wallet plugin, the Linea test network is present by default, which eliminates the user experience barrier of manually adding networks and to some extent reduces the entry threshold.

In addition, with the easy-to-use API provided by Infura, developers can quickly deploy and expand dapps. Developers can use popular development environments such as Truffle, Hardhat, Foundry, and Brownie to build, test, debug, and deploy their Solidity smart contracts. Ganache and Diligence, which are compatible with them, respectively support local code testing and auditing.

In addition, ConsenSys' native, trustless bridging solutions and MetaMask-friendly bridging solutions also allow developers to securely move tokens in and out of the network.

2、Unique Internal Proof System and Compression Method

Linea Proof Process

Linea's technology is different from other zkEVMs in terms of arithmetic schemes and internal proof systems. To prove the occurrence of transactions, Linea uses a series of steps. It starts with arithmetization, which converts computer programs into mathematical expressions that zk proofs can understand. This process transforms transactions into traces and a set of constraints that verify the accuracy of the computation.

Continuing on, Linea utilizes internal proof systems Vortex and Arcane, which recursively reduce the size of proofs and continuously improve their efficiency and compactness through optimized calculations and specific algorithms. Ultimately, after multiple iterations and internal optimizations, the proofs are further compressed into the final external proof system, Plonk.

This design enables Linea to efficiently generate and verify zk proofs, ensuring transaction privacy and security. By utilizing recursive optimization of the internal proof system and a final compression step, Linea is able to reduce proof size and improve overall performance, providing users with a fast and efficient transaction experience. This innovative technical approach sets Linea apart in the zkEVM space and provides powerful technical support for building scalable decentralized applications.

Internal Attestation System: Vortex and Arcane

1. Design based on "Lattice-based":

Vortex is a SNARK scheme based on "lattice", which can run on any domain with reasonable binary precision and efficiently handle multiple types of queries. Compared with traditional encryption methods based on "lattice" hash has many advantages. It has faster performance than popular elliptic curve cryptography and is post-quantum, which means it can resist quantum computing attacks. "Lattice" is optimized for recursion, can be effectively hardware accelerated, and is compatible with SIMD parallelism. In addition, lattice-based functions avoid the trade-off between speed and usage in SNARK (succinct non-interactive argument of knowledge), making them more universal.

And the SNARK scheme itself has some advantages over STARK: the adoption speed of SNARK is actually much faster than STARK, and SNARK was discovered several years earlier than STARK, which has given it a significant lead in adoption; SNARKs also have more developer libraries, published code, projects, and developers actively committed to the technology; secondly, the Gas required for SNARK is expected to be only 24% of STARK, which means that using SNARK for transactions will be much cheaper for end users; finally, the proof size of SNARK is much smaller than STARK, which means it requires less on-chain storage.

2. Transparent Settings:

The setup process of Vortex is transparent and does not require trust in the setup participants, making Vortex more secure and reliable.

3. Linear commitment scheme:

Vortex uses an innovative linear commitment scheme that efficiently handles commitments for multiple scalar products and proves smaller sizes compared to other schemes.

4. Self-recursive technology:

Vortex uses self-recursion technology, which allows for the reuse of different Ring-SIS instances and error-correcting codes, thus providing flexibility in balancing proof size and runtime when selecting Ring-SIS parameters and error-correcting codes.

5. Interactive Oracle Proof (IOP) model:

Arcane compiles arithmetic into an interactive Oracle proof (IOP) model, which allows verifiers to query an oracle, a trusted third party that probabilistically provides necessary information. Linea adopts the Wizard-IOP framework, providing more complex queries than the standard IOP model, and Arcane converts constraint sets into polynomial evaluations, enhancing the mathematical form of the proof. To eliminate reliance on third parties, Linea uses cryptographic assumptions and iterative transformations, replacing oracles with polynomial commitment schemes.

Final compression step: Plonk

In order to enable proofs to be directly verified on Ethereum's L1, Linea uses PlonK proofs to perform the final compression step. PlonK, like Groth16 (which Linea originally used), is a zkSNARK construction that utilizes advanced encryption techniques. PlonK's SNARK-friendly properties and lattice-based hashing ensure fast verification and generate compact proofs suitable for efficient verification on L1.

Plonk vs Groth16: The transition from Groth16 to Plonk is driven by the trusted setup process. Whenever the circuit changes, Groth16 requires a repeated setup, while Plonk performs a single setup that is independent of the circuit. Linea's iterative circuit design requires frequent re-running of the trusted setup with Groth16, which raises concerns about trust. By adopting Plonk, Linea maintains the integrity of the protocol while providing confidence in fair competition for the community.

After this transformation, a proof will be created for Linea's validator contract to verify on Ethereum L1. After successfully verifying the proof, state commitment, and invocation data, the new aggregated state will be finally determined on the L1 smart contract.

What benefits have these technologies brought to Linea?

In short, the technology mentioned earlier enables Linea to increase transaction speed and reduce user gas fees while ensuring high compatibility with EVM. As zk-rollup itself is difficult to be compatible with EVM, there is a negative correlation between zk-rollup's compatibility and speed. Linea, as a highly compatible Type 2 zkEVM that is completely equivalent to EVM, faces even greater challenges in improving its speed. Therefore, Vortex, a SNARK solution based on "lattice", is an outstanding and rare technological breakthrough in this regard.

3、Multi-Prover's Advancement

Multi Prover is a client of Ethereum that views Linea as one of its clients. Currently, there are many different clients such as zkSync, Polygon zkEVM, and other Layer2 projects. Only by having multiple clients can the security of Ethereum be ensured, because even if one client fails, there are other backup clients available for use.

Declan Fox, the senior product manager of Linea, stated that in order to prevent potential risks, Linea will promote the use of Multi Prover method. This means that multiple provers (which can be understood as multiple different Layer2 products) will jointly use various implementations of zkEVM to verify transactions. In this way, if one prover is incorrect or becomes unavailable, as long as the other available provers reach the statutory number, the system will continue to operate reliably.

ConsenSys' global business leader, @hotpot_dao, explained: "Multi Prover is a product that allows three different Layer2s to provide proof. As long as these three pass, the product can be verified and returned to the main network, greatly enhancing the security of Ethereum. This is also a use case we believe Linea has in building Layer2 protocols. As a ConsenSys company, we are mainly committed to promoting Multi Prover. This also aligns with the overall direction of Ethereum or our future vision of the Ethereum network, and is also a huge technical challenge."

Multi Prover is crucial for the entire Layer2 track. As the initiator, promoter, and even leader of Multi Prover, Linea will also gain more market recognition and trust if Multi Prover is successfully implemented, and will have more opportunities and advantages in future development.

Sixth, Ecological Development

So far, Linea has attracted more than 100 ecological partners to join. The main network of Linea will be launched together with this huge ecosystem composed of these partners, providing opportunities for users, builders, and developers to build the next generation of scalable Ethereum Dapps.

Based on our long-term observation of Linea, Linea focuses on building cross-chain bridges, wallets and other infrastructure in the early stage of the current ecosystem, with layouts including DEX, lending and other Defi tracks, while deepening Social, Gamefi, etc., constantly attracting users and developers, and achieving the large-scale landing of web3. As the global business leader of ConsenSys said, "Like a social network needs network computing, there is a cold start problem, which is difficult to achieve on the second layer protocol. So we first do Defi well, then do some small Gamefi, and then Linea hopes that users can experience our platform and network first, lay a good foundation, and then hope that there will be good social software to come and develop."

With the launch of the mainnet, we have selected some of the currently popular and active projects from the Linea mainnet ecosystem for analysis. For more detailed and comprehensive information, please refer to the official website.

DEFI

Linea Ecology TVL Rankings

LineaBank

LineaBank is a lending protocol built on Linea, which focuses on providing privacy protection and scalability. The protocol gives users complete control over their assets and eliminates intermediaries through decentralized markets, providing users with competitive rates. From its project name, it can be seen that LineaBank is a native project on the Linea blockchain. In addition, according to the above chart, LineaBank is currently the project with the highest Total Value Locked (TVL) on Linea, with a TVL of $5.81 million as of today (7.27).

In addition, it is worth mentioning that after Linea was launched on the mainnet, LineaBank held a "pre-mining" activity during which users could receive 100% of the protocol's income.

iZUMi Finance

iZUMi Finance is a liquidity optimization protocol built on the Ethereum network. It is a Uniswap V3 ecosystem project that provides "programmable liquidity as a service" based on Uniswap V3 for blockchain projects.

iZUMi's LiquidBox plan aims to assist projects in attracting liquidity by planning effective incentive-based liquidity supply programs. It also provides a shared liquidity pool that maps the liquidity of a token to multiple chains, allowing LPs to mine on multiple chains using liquidity from the original chain.

iZUMi Finance has also launched iZiswap on BNB Chain and zkSync. This is a discrete liquidity AMM upgraded based on the centralized liquidity model of Uniswap V3. iZUMi is also developing iUSD, a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar and backed by USDC. iUSD is used for the iZUMi Bond Mining Program.

iZUMi's other user-centric decentralized financial products include an impermanent loss insurance plan, which provides liquidity providers with refunds for impermanent losses incurred on their LP tokens. It also offers fixed income opportunities with an annual interest rate of up to 10% for a 30-day period.

iZUMi Finance has raised a total of $57.6 million in funding so far, with investors such as Mirana Ventures, Everest Ventures Group, and IOSG participating, providing strong financial backing and powerful resources.

As shown in the above figure, on July 11th, iZUMi announced a partnership with Linea. As of today, iZUMi Finance ranks fourth in Linea's TVL rankings, with a TVL of $1.36 million as of today (7.27). This means that iZUMi Finance has been recognized and actively involved in the Linea ecosystem. Through its partnership with Linea, iZUMi will further expand its influence and contribute to the development of the Linea ecosystem.

Mendi Finance

Mendi Finance is a lending protocol compatible with EVM that will be launched on the Linea network.

Mendi Finance provides peer-to-peer lending in a completely decentralized, transparent, and non-custodial manner. As a native project on Linea, its goal is to become the leading lending platform on Linea by providing competitive incentives for the currency market and having the deepest liquidity.

After going live, users can borrow any supported asset on Mendi Finance and use their own funds as collateral to borrow these supported assets, including ETH, BTC, USDC, USDT, and DAI. The collateral ratio for these assets ranges from 0-90%, representing the maximum borrowing limit that users can obtain for a specific asset. If the borrowing balance of an account exceeds the limit of the collateral factor, the account will be liquidated.

HorizonDEX

HorizonDEX is a centralized liquidity decentralized exchange that allows users to allocate liquidity within a custom price range, enabling traders to maximize efficiency and minimize slippage. As a native project on the Linea blockchain, HorizonDEX ranks second in Linea's Total Value Locked (TVL) leaderboard, with a TVL of $1.87 million as of today (7.27).

In addition, as shown in the above figure, after the Linea mainnet went live, HorizonDEX held an event where users could receive airdropped tokens $HZN by trading and providing liquidity. During the event period (7.19~8.2), for every $1 worth of trading or liquidity provided for 24 hours, users will receive 1 yHZN token. After the event ends, airdrops will be distributed proportionally based on the amount of yHZN held, with more yHZN resulting in more airdropped tokens.

EchoDEX

EchoDEX is a decentralized trading platform built on the Linea Consensys network and is also a native project on the Linea blockchain. It is the first decentralized exchange (DEX) to go live on Linea and currently ranks fifth in Linea's total value locked (TVL) leaderboard. As of today (7.27), its TVL has exceeded $780,000.

It is worth mentioning that its token ECP currently has a market value of $37.4M, and the token also attracted a lot of attention from the community during its initial issuance.

And EchoDEX, like the two projects mentioned earlier, also has its airdrop expectations. On July 19th, they announced that users can earn points by swapping, adding liquidity, mining, or even daily check-ins, and have the opportunity to receive airdrops.

Owlto Finance

Owlto Finance is a decentralized Cross-Rollup bridge that provides a low-cost, secure, and fast asset transfer solution. The smart contract is audited by the security company Beosin. It is worth mentioning that after the Linea mainnet is launched, Owlto Finance has opened a 7-day 0 transaction fee cross-chain activity for Linea.

It is worth mentioning that Owlto Finance stated in their official documentation that this Cross-Rollup bridge is different from other Cross-Rollup bridges based on secure Rollup technology. Asset transfers are conducted between the EOA addresses of the "sender" and "liquidity provider" on the "source" and "destination" networks, and the "sender" does not interact with the smart contract address. This design can reduce risks because smart contract addresses may be vulnerable to attacks, while EOA addresses are typically more secure.

NFT

NFTs2ME

In order to simplify the process of creating, deploying, and managing NFTs for creators on the Linea network, NFTs2ME claims to provide a utility that allows users to create and manage NFTs without writing a single line of code. Additionally, NFTs2Me claims that this facility is open to anyone and free to use.

The platform's toolkit includes a design panel that allows creators to define the attributes of their NFTs. It features AI-driven art and image generation tools that enable users to create artwork on the platform, define its metadata, and set casting prices. It supports multiple NFT smart contract standards and allows collectors to pay coinage fees of any (encrypted) denomination.

NFT creators can use various platform tools to manage their generated artworks. The NFTs2Me user dashboard features analytical tools to help users track the performance of their NFTs. Users can also schedule and execute airdrops, take snapshots, design NFT access controls, and prepare whitelists for their NFT minting activities through their NFTs2Me profile.

NFTs2Me is multi-chain compatible and can be used on Ethereum, Polygon, Taraxa, and Layer2 networks including Arbitrum, Optimism, zkSync Era, and Linea.

ghostNFT

ghostNFT is one of the official testnet projects on the Linea network. With the launch of Linea mainnet Alpha, it is expected to be launched on the mainnet soon.

ghostNFT claims to use the ERC-721Envious standard (an improved version of the ERC-721 standard) to provide additional monetization functionality for NFTs through NFT collateralization. It claims to empower NFT creators and collectors in various ways through its NFT 2.0 project, which combines NFTs and decentralized finance. It allows creators to define collateralization plans for their NFTs, collect collateral, and crowdfund their NFT releases. Users can also perform this operation on individual NFTs or entire collections through the "decentralized" function.

ghostNFT is multi-chain supported and is already available for users on Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Avalanche, and several other networks.

Infra

Thirdweb

Thirdweb is a Web3 software developer based in the UK, offering free Web3 development tools that allow developers to build, launch, and manage web3 projects without writing any code. With just a few clicks, developers can add features including NFTs, social tokens and currencies, token trading markets, and NFT trading.

Thirdweb completed a strategic financing of $24 million with a valuation of $160 million in August 25, 2022. The round was led by Haun Ventures, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Shopify, Protocol Labs, Polygon, Shrug VC, and other individual investors, including Joseph Lacob, a partner at top Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins and a major shareholder of NBA's Golden State Warriors. Prior to this, Thirdweb also received investments from Mark Cuban, owner of NBA's Dallas Mavericks, and renowned American entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk in a $5 million seed round, bringing the total funding to $29 million and providing strong financial support.

In addition, Linea has also published a tutorial on "How to quickly build using thirdweb", which details how to deploy smart contracts using Thirdweb's Solidity SDK, manage them through the dashboard, and build an application to interact with the SDK.

SocialFi

QuestN

QuestN is a Web3 task and activity platform incubated by Hogwarts Labs. Users can earn tokens and NFT badges by participating in tasks and activities.

QuestN is committed to providing a variety of on-chain and off-chain tasks without permission for GameFi, DAO, and other projects, bringing continuous benefits to users and the Web3 ecosystem and its native value.

As shown in the above figure, up to now, QuestN has completed nearly 90 million tasks, issued over 1.6 million NFTs, and has the support of over 26,000 communities.

In addition, on June 1st of this year, QuestN's parent company Hogwarts Labs completed Pre-A round financing, raising $8 million. Pre-A round financing

Conclusion: As mentioned earlier, it is evident that Linea's ecosystem is still in its very early stages of development. Currently, most of the projects that rank high in TVL are mainly attracting a large number of airdrop hunters through their airdrop expectations, resulting in an increase in TVL and trading volume.

However, Linea is backed by the powerful blockchain company Consensys, which provides strong resources and financial support for its ecosystem development, laying a solid foundation. With time, perhaps Linea's ecosystem can gradually improve and grow, and the strong background support can also attract more developers and projects to join, bringing users more useful and innovative applications.

Seven, Project Progress and Future Plans

Project Progress:

The "Linea Voyage" event organized by Linea has achieved great success recently. In just nine weeks, the event has achieved over 30 million transactions and attracted 5.2 million independent wallets. It is worth mentioning that during the Linea testnet phase, 5.5 million independent wallets submitted over 46 million transactions, making Linea one of the largest and fastest-growing projects on the Goerli network.

Now, Linea has entered a new stage. Last week, Linea released the Alpha version of its mainnet. During the Alpha phase, Linea officials will begin evaluating partners and users, monitoring systems, and providing support for those building new features using Linea. This version will be Linea's first complete system on the mainnet, serving as a "training round" that allows users to learn and adapt to using Linea in a real-time environment.

Future Plans:

At the same time, the Linea team is actively pursuing the gradual enhancement of the system's decentralization and trust minimization. This process is divided into five stages, namely stages 0 to 4:

Phase 0

EVM Equivalent: Linea's zkEVM provides the same functionality as the EVM designated by the Ethereum Foundation to ensure default portability. Based on Linea, developers can choose to move their dapps to other EVM-supported chains such as Ethereum at any time without rewriting smart contracts, reinstalling tools, or paying new fees.

Initiate Security Council: Meanwhile, Linea officials will also convene the first Linea Security Council meeting to monitor the network, protect users, and mitigate risks associated with the new system.

In addition, the client software used to run local nodes on the Linea network will be made public, allowing any participant to choose to independently verify the status of Linea and minimize trust in Linea operators.

Phase 1

Open Source Stack: The Linea team plans to license the Linea software stack under AGPL-3.0, which is a free software license that ensures users can freely view, fork, and modify the code.

100% EVM Coverage: Linea will generate computation proofs for all EVM opcodes and precompiles, unlocking trustless execution for all use cases. Additionally, arithmetic specifications will be published, audited, and rewarded for finding errors to improve the security and reliability of the system.

阶段 2

Security Council Diversification: The Security Council established during the Linea mainnet Alpha launch plays a critical role in network supervision and control. In order to prevent power concentration and potential bias, the Linea team plans to expand participation in the Council while retaining the 6 out of 8 multi-signature threshold or stricter immediate upgrade threshold. This modification ensures balanced representation and promotes more robust collective decision-making, adding an additional check and balance layer to the system.

Resisting censorship withdrawal: The architecture will be improved to prevent Rollup operators from blocking user withdrawals. At this stage, Linea will ensure that users can initiate withdrawals independently, ensuring continued access and control of their assets on Linea.

阶段 3

Decentralized Operator: The Linea team plans to significantly enhance the trust of network participants and the overall integrity of the system by decentralizing the roles of Provers and Sequencers. Currently, Provers and Sequencers are responsible for generating zero-knowledge proofs and managing second-layer transactions, respectively, and are key roles in the Linea ecosystem. In addition, the Linea team acknowledges that this may bring some technical complexity, such as potential delays, increased transaction costs, and potential maximum extractable value (MEV) issues. However, the team is committed to addressing these challenges and creating a trustworthy and efficient platform for the community.

Decentralized Governance: The official team has stated that the democratization of Linea's governance is key to its continued development. This approach cultivates a fair and transparent system in which all stakeholders can participate, and Linea's future is guided by its user community. This shared governance not only reduces the risks of unilateral decision-making and single points of failure, but also enhances the network's resilience. In turn, this promotes collective ownership and trust among network participants, thereby enhancing the ecosystem's sustainable growth.

阶段 4

The final stage of the official roadmap aims to further ensure the robustness of the ecosystem and mitigate trust-related risks by implementing multiple proof-of-stake mechanisms and limiting governance power.

Multi-Prover Rollup: The EVM will continue to develop as outlined in the Ethereum roadmap and will be driven by a larger Ethereum community and the Ethereum Foundation. Therefore, in order to make changes to the Linea network at a reasonable pace and mitigate implementation risks, the official plan is to integrate multiple different implementations of the zkEVM prover, called Multi-Prover Rollup.

And because every transaction on Linea is verified by multiple heterogeneous implementations of zkEVM, it ensures that even if one prover encounters an error or becomes unavailable (which is not impossible given the complexity), the system can continue to operate uninterrupted. This approach not only enhances confidence in the platform's reliability during the continuous development of the EVM specification, but also encourages exploration of innovative progress while maintaining excellent system uptime.

Restriction of Governance: Finally, Linea plans to limit governance power and restrict it to the necessary scope. The upgrade of the aggregation logic will be immutable, allowing only upgrades to validators in the event of changes to the EVM specification. Users will receive reasonable notice of exiting the aggregation. These measures are designed to maintain the stability and security of the system and promote participation and trust in the entire community.

Eight, Summary

The emergence of Linea has not yet brought significant changes to the web3 industry, and its impact on the Layer2 track is relatively weak. However, in the zkEVM track, Linea can be considered a breakthrough. As the first zkEVM project equivalent to EVM to go live on the mainnet, Linea itself is an important progress for the zkEVM track. This means that the progress of zkEVM has reached the level of full equivalence with EVM, and can achieve seamless migration from the mainnet to zk-Rollup.

In addition, compared to other zkEVM projects, Linea has strong background support, leading users, resources, and funding support that make it a strong competitor. This increases the sense of urgency for other zkEVM projects and further accelerates the development process of the entire zkEVM track.

However, it is insufficient to say that, through the data analysis in the previous section, we can find that Linea still has a significant gap compared to the leading zk-rollup project zkSync. At the same time, in terms of ecology, Linea's development is still relatively backward compared to several other zkEVM projects that have already been launched on the mainnet. Therefore, Linea still needs to continuously improve and innovate in order to surpass other zkEVM projects and become the leader in the zkEVM field. This requires the Linea team to work hard and actively attract more developers and users to participate, promoting the prosperity and development of the entire ecosystem.

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