Polygon Labs has announced the production readiness of Plonky3, Polygon’s next generation of zero-knowledge (ZK) proving systems.

Plonky3 is designed to give developers modular, flexible options when building zero-knowledge virtual machines (zkVMs) and zero-knowledge Ethereum virtual machines (zkEVMs).

This upgrade over the previous Plonky2 model will be open-source and available under the MIT/Apache license, a dual license that enables users to freely use, modify and distribute software.

Step up from Plonky2

Plonky3 is a step up from Plonky2 and provides an improved toolkit for developers, allowing them to be more modular and flexible.

In a written Q&A with Cointelegraph, Daniel Lubarov, co-founder of Polygon, explained that Plonky3 “builds on the successes of Plonky2,” which previously set “a high standard for the industry.”

“Plonky3 takes this a step further by providing a toolkit that supports a wide range of configurations, enabling developers to optimize for speed, proof size, or a balance of the two depending on their needs.”

Ethereum scalability implications

Plonky3 promises to significantly improve Ethereum scalability, emboldened by Polygon Labs’ long-emphasized importance of ZK technology for Ethereum’s growth.

Discussing Plonky3’s impact on Ethereum and its performance compared to its predecessor, Lubarov explained that it was “difficult to draw fair comparisons among ZK proving systems.”

“...each system has its strengths and weaknesses, both in terms of the types of computations it excels at proving as well as the hardware that it performs best on."

Lubarov explained the implications of the ZK proving system upgrade for Ethereum scalability, stating that “for certain computations and configurations, Plonky3 is about 5-10x faster than Plonky2.”

Polygon Labs brings EVM to the TON ecosystem

TON Application Chain (TAAC) and Polygon Labs announced that the TON layer-2 had integrated Polygon CDK on July 9 to bring EVM-compatible decentralized applications (DApps) to TAC.

The integration aims to increase the number of applications available to TON Network users, including identity solutions, gaming, and decentralized finance (DeFi).

Pavel Alktukhov, the CEO of TAC, told Cointelegraph that the EVM compatibility would remove barriers to TON Network use and increase interest in DeFi and gaming finance (GameFi).