Cronos zkEVM Testnet's Tethys Upgrade: Getting Ready for Mainnet Launch
May 2024 newsletter: new release of Cronos zkEVM Testnet
We are pleased to announce that the Cronos zkEVM Testnet network was successfully upgraded to its latest major release "Tethys".
The Tethys testnet upgrade marks a major milestone on the path to Cronos zkEVM's mainnet launch, which will take place later in the summer of 2024.
What is Cronos zkEVM?
Cronos zkEVM is a zero-knowledge (ZK) layer-2 blockchain network secured by Ethereum, that represents a significant milestone on Cronos' journey towards scalability and mainstream adoption.
The Cronos zkEVM project is a ZK Chain using ZK Stack, launched in a partnership between Cronos Labs and engineering teams from Matter Labs (the team behind zkSync), Crypto.com, VVS Finance, Fulcrom Finance and Veno Finance.
The main points of differentiation of Cronos zkEVM are as follows:
Existing user community: #CROFam is a strong community of users and dapps that have proven their passion and resilience through market cycles.
Shared liquidity: when users hold cryptocurrencies on a ZK Chain, their assets are secured by Ethereum where they can always choose to withdraw. They can transfer their assets to other ZK Chains securely and at low cost thanks to unified bridge and messaging.
Yield-bearing assets: the network will introduce a gas token, called zkCRO, as well as zkETH and zkUSD tokens, that are natively yield generating for users, just by holding them on-chain. The yield generation protocol is being built by Veno Finance. Cronos zkEVM has the potential to create an entire ecosystem of dapps that treat yield-bearing tokens as first class citizens in a high interest rate economy.
Account abstraction: Dapps on Cronos zkEVM should support AA by default, so that they can take care of relaying transactions to Cronos zkEVM and even paying for gas.
Follow this link to read about Cronos zkEVM and its architecture.
What is new with the upgrade?
Better docs and updated URLs
The navigation of the cronos.org website has been enhanced to clarify how Cronos, the blockchain ecosystem, encompasses 3 distinct and complementary blockchain networks:
Cronos POS, a leading Cosmos chain for payments and NFTs (“layer zero”);
Cronos EVM, the leading Ethereum-compatible blockchain built on Cosmos SDK;
and Cronos zkEVM, a new high performance layer 2 network secured by Ethereum.
The Cronos zkEVM documentation has been enriched and updated, now at the following URL: https://docs-zkevm.cronos.org.
Here are the updated URLs to be used for Cronos zkEVM testnet, effective immediately:
Cronos zkEVM Testnet blockchain explorer: https://explorer.zkevm.cronos.org/testnet
Cronos zkEVM Testnet JSON RPC (wallet connection): https://testnet.zkevm.cronos.org
Cronos zkEVM Testnet faucet: https://zkevm.cronos.org/faucet
Technical improvements
Cronos zkEVM's Tethys upgrade is based on zkSync's v24 release, paving the way for the evolution of zkSync Era from a standalone blockchain to becoming just one of the many ZK Chains of the zkSync ecosystem.
Tethys introduces several significant features:
Shared bridge: with Tethys, the bridge between Ethereum's Sepolia Testnet and Cronos zkEVM Testnet becomes a shared bridge that connects all ZK Chains to Ethereum. The shared bridge will eventually enable seamless interoperability and cheap transfers between all ZK Chains. When crypto assets are transferred via the shared bridge, they don't need to transit via Ethereum Mainnet. The shared bridge will effectively represent a liquidity aggregation layer between ZK Chains.
Cheaper transaction fees: the upgrade makes it possible for the network to save on Layer 1 transaction fees by storing transaction data in validium configuration or in the new data blobs introduced by Ethereum's Duncun upgrade. In the future, Data Availability layers will be introduced as well. For testing purposes, the Tethys upgrade will adopt the validium configuration.
Updated gas token implementation: in contrast with many Layer 2 networks, Cronos zkEVM uses a protocol token derived from CRO, called zkCRO, instead of ETH, for transaction fee payments. Tethys introduces a new, future-proof implementation of this custom protocol token.
VM version 1.5.0 support for developers: the latest zkEVM version supports more accurate pubdata estimation and supports more opcodes, among other features.
More robust upgrades: Tethys introduces an improved workflow to upgrade the network in the future, enabling faster and safer updates in the future.
Although not yet included in this version of Tethys, several additional updates will be incorporated into Tethys in the coming weeks:
Optimized gas price adjuster: will enable Cronos zkEVM gas price to vary more effectively depending on Ethereum's gas price and the ETH/CRO price.
CRO-less L1 to L2 bridging: will enable users to transfer crypto assets from Ethereum to Cronos zkEVM without holding any CRO on Ethereum. L2 transaction fees will be paid using the ETH collected as part of the L1 transaction.
Safer and more granular permission system.
Implications for end-users
Like all testnets, Cronos zkEVM Testnet is primarily geared towards a developer audience. If you are an end-user, don't expect that you can transfer real cryptocurrency or make investments on Cronos zkEVM just yet!
The Cronos ecosystem development team will soon announce a series of quests that anyone can complete on the testnet, as a way to engage with the community, collect feedback, and jump start the upcoming Cronos zKEVM user reward program. Expect more information in the first half of June 2024.
Once the testnet quests are launched, expect more end-user activities to be announced in June and July.
The Cronos zkEVM alpha mainnet should be open to the public later in the summer, together with a number of participating applications. The exact mainnet launch date is dependent on the migration of the zkSync ecosystem to a shared bridge on mainnet. Stay tuned for announcements.
Implications for Developers
The Tethys Testnet is a brand new network, meaning that all wallet balances and smart contracts have been reset on the testnet. We currently do not expect that future testnet upgrades will require another reset.
If you are an application creator who would like to participate in the Cronos zkEVM mainnet launch around the end of July, it's time to raise your hand! You can apply to become a Cronos zkEVM launch partner.
Launch partners will receive enhanced user exposure in the various Cronos communication channels at and around launch (Twitter/X, newsletter, AMAs, etc.). Click on this link to apply.
Finally, head to the Cronos zkEVM documentation at https://docs-zkevm.cronos.org and to the community support channel in Discord (#cronos-zkevm in the Cronos Discord server) if you are ready to start deploying your applications on the testnet.
The documentation will be enriched in the coming weeks with relevant links, tutorials, and details about the various developer tools to be expected by the time of the alpha mainnet launch.
Thank you
Thank you to all #CROFam members who have supported the Cronos ecosystem so far. The possibilities offered by this new network are exciting!
Meanwhile, if you have not yet registered to participate in the Cronos Spring Odyssey currently taking place on the Galxe platform, follow this link to join the fun: https://galxe.com/cronos.
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