Hey @everyone, earlier today, we carried out some optimizations to the network which resulted in brief downtimes.

You might have experienced minor delays in block generation if you were submitting transactions during this period. Apart from this, no other impacts were expected.

We're pleased to announce that the upgrade process is now complete and the system is functioning as expected. Thank you for your patience and understanding. As always, let us know if you have any questions or issue

We wanted to give you a quick update regarding our Discord server. As you may know, we've reached our current user limit of 500k members. We've reached out to Discord for a server limit increase, but we're still waiting for their response.

In the meantime, we could use your help to get their attention! We've posted a Tweet about this issue, and we'd appreciate it if you could interact with it - whether that's through likes, retweets, or comments. Every bit of interaction helps us get noticed by Discord.

Here's the Tweet: https://twitter.com/zksync/status/1665762967307026436?s=20

Thank you for your patience and support. We're doing our best to accommodate our growing community, and we'll keep the community updated as soon as we hear back from Discord and will post an update on our subreddit when the limit has increased so those outside of Discord can know they can join https://www.reddit.com/r/zkSync/new/

Network Update:

Earlier today, our engineering team was alerted that a small subset of users that transacted on the network experienced a withdrawal delay – up to 6 hours.

The system is now operating as expected and all pending withdrawals have been finalized or are continuing to do so.

As an extra precaution, we’ve assigned a team that will be closely monitoring withdrawals for the next 48 hours to ensure there are no further issues.

As we have always done in the past and will continue to do, we wanted to be fully transparent with our community.

Important to remember from incidents like these is what we learn while the system is still in Alpha. Identifying and resolving issues helps improve the protocol as we work toward our mission of advancing personal freedom for all.
https://twitter.com/zksync/status/1666158729790619659?s=20

Good news!

We're excited to announce that our Discord server limit has been increased! This means we're now able to welcome new members again.

Here's the invite link: https://join.zksync.dev/

You can always confirm our official links on our documentation page: https://docs.zksync.io/contact.html

A few friendly reminders:

1. there is no zkSync token

2. admins or zkSync team members will never DM you first.

Stay safe and always double-check who you're communicating with.

We're looking forward to seeing you in the server!

Introducing the ZK Credo and ZK Stack

ZK Credo
Sharing the first draft of The ZK Credo — a declaration of the foundational principles for the emerging ZK-powered Internet of Value.

v1 is now live on GitHub for community discussion and feedback from the Credo's rightful owner: You! <https://github.com/zksync/credo>

Every mission requires a North Star, a compass that ensures the voyager stays on course. The ZK Credo serves as this North Star for zkSync, and our hope is that it will fulfill this crucial purpose for the entire web3 ecosystem.

The ZK Credo addresses (1) principles and (2) community ethos.

(1) The foundational principles that are critical for decentralized networks:

- Trustlessness
- Security
- Reliability
- Censorship-Resistance
- Privacy
- Accessibility
- Hyperscalability
- Sovereignty

(2) The community ethos: The understanding of a shared moral duty for collective action against oppression. Only when this value is deeply embedded within the community can the network withstand the gradual consolidation of power over time.

ZK Stack
Meet ZK Stack 🧰: Your modular framework for building sovereign ZK-powered Hyperchains, based on Era’s open source code.

Last week, we shared an initial draft of the ZK Credo, a set of guiding principles for ZK tech and culture to reshape the internet. The ZK Stack is our contribution to unlocking the ZK-powered Internet of Value and achieving our long-term mission to advance personal freedom for all.

The ZK Stack will give developers full sovereignty – ranging from the choice of the data availability mode to using your project's own token to decentralize the sequencer. It's open source, EVM compatible, battle-tested, and future-proof.

🧠 Learn more: https://blog.matter-labs.io/introducing-the-zk-stack-c24240c2532a

∎ ZK Stack at a glance ∎

Free: The ZK Stack is developed under free open-source licenses, ensuring its availability at no cost, and we strongly encourage you to contribute and utilize it as you see fit.

Composable: Hyperchains built with the ZK Stack can seamlessly connect in a trustless network, boasting low latency and shared liquidity.

Modular: Customize and shape every aspect of your Hyperchain, from the choice of sequencer and data availability mode to defining your own tokenomics.

Battle-tested: zkSync Era stands as the most widely adopted ZK rollup on Ethereum. With this track record, the ZK Stack is a safe bet with regard to security and reliability.

Future-proof: ZK rollups are the future of Ethereum scaling. To harness the full potential of ZK's superpowers, it is crucial to build the right architecture from the very beginning.

∎ Who is ZK Stack for? ∎

The ZK Stack will allow teams to build a custom Hyperchain (configured for their specific use case), with fully trustless, cheap, asynchronous connectivity to the rest of the Hyperchain ecosystem.

Hyperchains are especially useful for teams that require:

• A lightweight sequencer with a low latency of sequencing
• Apps that can interact without the trust assumptions of bridges
• A closed private chain, with connectivity to the ecosystem
• A way to use a native token as your system's base token

∎ Get started today ∎

In the coming weeks, we will be implementing modifications to our codebase to make it easier to checkout, configure, and deploy an instance of the ZK Stack. Our ultimate goal is a one-click deploy!

zkSync is assisting several pilot projects in adopting the ZK Stack; if you wish to be part of this cohort, reach out.

Learn more about the ZK Stack in the Bankless Episode with co-founder Alex G and Head of Engineering Anthony Rose: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PSHz93lWVM

Say hello to Boojum 👋: zkSync Era’s new high-performance proof system for radical decentralization. Boojum is an upgrade that will transition zkSync Era to a STARK-powered proof system, providing world-class performance on consumer-grade hardware.

💡 Learn more: https://zksync.mirror.xyz/HJ2Pj45EJkRdt5Pau-ZXwkV2ctPx8qFL19STM5jdYhc

TL;DR 👇

Boojum is the name of our Rust-based cryptographic library, which we use to implement the upgraded version of the ZK circuits for zkSync Era and the ZK Stack.

The name Boojum was inspired by Lewis Carroll's poem "The Hunting of the Snark," where the Boojum represents the most fearsome kind of Snark.

We intentionally designed zkSync Era in a way that cryptographic upgrades can be made without a regenesis, meaning that the Boojum upgrade won’t cause any user disruptions.

Why Boojum❓

From day one, zkSync’s mission is to advance personal freedom for all — making digital self-ownership universally accessible by building a blockchain network that is trustless, secure, permissionless, affordable, easy to use, resilient and limitlessly scalable. Boojum plays an important role in advancing this mission by delivering:

1. World-class performance

zkSync Era’s current SNARK-based proof system is effective today, but it won’t scale to the volume that we envision for hyperchains. zkSync Era’s sequencer can already process over 100 TPS; Boojum orders of magnitude improvements to performance complements this well.

2. Reduced hardware requirements for decentralization

Our long-term goal is to enable user-powered, decentralized proof generation. Boojum represents a breakthrough in this direction — with the prover running on consumer-grade GPUs requiring only 16 GB GPU RAM.

Boojum’s Journey to Mainnet 🚴🏽‍♀️

Boojum is now live on Mainnet, generating and verifying ‘shadow proofs’ today with real production data so that we can carefully test the system ahead of fully migrating.

Today, we’re also open-sourcing the repo; if you’d like to take a look, you can find it here 👇

https://github.com/matter-labs/era-boojum

This is the first of a series of posts on Boojum. We will provide updates on our progress, including more details on implementation, security, and performance.

Watch here for more, anon ∎

https://twitter.com/zksync/status/1680820952991408129?s=20

Looking for a Centralized Exchange to deposit and withdraw to and from zkSync Era?
Check out the recent integrations from:
- Binance (https://twitter.com/zksync/status/1699769445105688990)
- Crypto.com (https://twitter.com/zksync/status/1689628771769298945)
- Bybit (https://twitter.com/zksync/status/1689969163593224192)

Meet zkSync's new ecosystem portal 👋

You can now explore the universe of dapps on zkSync with the new ecosystem portal managed by DappRadar, which features dapps’ key metrics, rankings, and more.

Visit: https://ecosystem.zksync.io/ or https://zksync.dappradar.com/

Learn more: https://zksync.mirror.xyz/TKWRSWULp-UNmx4I8A1bp81vQgWXZlQzUCelO8kQpS4

Portal and Block Explorer Changes

The zkSync Era Portal (Bridge) will now be run by TX Fusion which is now providing a user-friendly interface for the Portal, enabling seamless token bridging and transaction viewing. https://portal.txsync.io/

The Block Explorer, crucial for exploring transactions, blocks, and contracts, is fully open-source, welcoming local community-run versions. These steps, part of a broader move towards decentralization, enhance user access and interaction with zkSync Era.

Explore further on the zkSync Explore Page (https://zksync.io/explore) or view the official announcement (https://twitter.com/zksync/status/1712457090613268926).

🗓 Devconnect 2023 Events Calendar

Check out the 30+ opportunities to meet up with the zkSync community the week of Devconnect — from zkSync Connect, to the ZK Bazaar and zkCafe, to technical talks, workshops, happy hours, and headline sessions!

https://matterlabs.notion.site/matterlabs/Devconnect-2023-Events-Calendar-b4e40d3063f24bca87790fc5491d36ab

Catch up on zkSync with Alex G

In case you missed it a new episode was released of the Zero Knowledge podcast, featuring Alex Gluchowski, co-founder of Matter Labs the team behind zkSync.

Dive deep into the evolution and future of zkSync, as Alex shares insights on zkSync Lite, zkSync Era, zkEVM, Boojum, zkPorter, ZK Stack, hyperchains, and more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLFbG0yvBak

This episode is packed with valuable updates and the vision of zkSync's journey. It's a fantastic resource for understanding where zkSync stands today and the exciting developments on the horizon.

Etherscan for zkSync Era

zkSync transactions are now available on Etherscan, the gold standard block explorer for searching and browsing verified Ethereum blocks and transactions.

Dive in: http://era.zksync.network/

Source: https://x.com/zksync/status/1744343399417737266?s=20

Withdrawal Process Change

We would like to inform you of a recent change in the withdrawal process. Effective January 16, 2024, withdrawals below 0.01 ETH will need to be manually claimed.

What This Means

If you initiated a withdrawal of less than 0.01 ETH from zkSync Era to Ethereum using native bridges such as txFusion or L2Scan since January 16, please take the below action.

These funds are safe but will require you to claim them manually.

Next Steps:

- Users: 24 hours after your withdrawal visit https://portal.txsync.io/bridge to “Claim” your withdrawn funds.

- Developers: Use the zksync-cli tool to finalize. Check docs for more details, https://docs.zksync.io/build/tooling/zksync-cli/commands.html#bridge-commands.

We understand that this may cause some inconvenience, and thank you for your continued support as we provide further updates.

Withdrawal Process Change pt. 2

zkSync Era is designed to have the best possible user experience — low fees, high throughput, and native account abstraction. That’s why, for the past year, Matter Labs voluntarily paid transaction fees to withdraw funds bridged from zkSync to Ethereum Mainnet. As zkSync continues to decentralize, the network cannot rely on central intermediaries to operate key protocol mechanisms.

Since March 31st, 23:59 UTC, users initiating transactions to withdraw funds from the zkSync native bridge to Ethereum mainnet (L2 -> L1) will need an additional transaction to claim them on Ethereum. Matter Labs will no longer cover these costs. This does not affect users bridging funds through third-party bridges.

Dedicated work is underway to make zkSync UX ready for mainstream adoption while eliminating intermediaries.

Native $USDC is live on zkSync Era

Until now, all USDC on zkSync has been bridged, either through the native zkSync bridge or third-party bridges. Native USDC is different. It’s backed by Circle with additional benefits.

In the coming days, you'll be able to migrate bridged USDC.e to native USDC on your preferred DEX.

Source: https://twitter.com/zksync/status/1777704832297513437

Introducing the ZK Nation

To bring Ethereum to the masses, ZKsync must maintain strong social and technical decentralization guarantees. To remain resilient in the journey ahead, ZKsync depends on ZK Nation, a vibrant community empowered to drive meaningful change through protocol governance.

The ZKsync protocol token will empower ZK Nation with the ability to propose protocol upgrades, deliberate, and vote on their outcome through delegation and ZKsync’s governance system.

Over the next week, more details will be unveiled about the ZKsync protocol delegation process, ZKsync’s protocol token allocation, and how you can actively contribute to the evolution of ZKsync.

Read more on: https://blog.zknation.io/introducing-zk-nation/

Introducing the ZK Token

It’s time to put the ZK token into the hands of the community. It’s your turn to govern ZKsync’s future.

Read more: https://blog.zknation.io/zk-token/