Matter Labs | Q3 2025 Deliverables Report

Protocol Development
1

Summary

In Q3 2025, Matter Labs delivered another set of foundational upgrades across performance, interoperability, privacy, and enterprise infrastructure to advance the Elastic Network vision.

Highlights included:

  • completing the first institutional pilot of interoperable Prividiums,
  • releasing selective disclosure and a new permissioning system for Prividium,
  • shipping ZKsync OS v0.0.5 with correctness testing and audit integration,
  • launching a new Airbender prover,
  • deploying the solx compiler v0.1.0 beta,
  • introducing 200 ms block times with v29,
  • shipping interop messaging and fast subjective finality on mainnet, and
  • migrating Era to the ZKsync Gateway.

Together, these milestones mark a new stage of protocol maturity: interoperable private chains for institutions, sub-second finality for partners, Ethereum-level developer tooling, and near real-time proving performance.

1. Performance & Cost Efficiency

Matter Labs continued to optimize the proving system and compiler toolchain.

  • Airbender Prover (Sep 2025): Released a new generation of the Airbender prover with better performance and lowered proving cost building on June’s open-source release. Cryptographers worked on proof recursion, GPU optimizations, and improved documentation to support near real-time interoperability and scalability for ZKsync chains.
  • ZKsync OS v0.0.5 (Sep 2025): Released a new version of ZKsync OS with correctness testing across execution and Ethereum blocks, integration of DevX improvements, and audit feedback. Technical debt was reduced, and STF and executor correctness were validated under production-like conditions.
  • solx Compiler v0.1.2 Beta (Sep 2025): Advanced to beta with aggressive size optimization. Contracts are 13% smaller than v0.1.1 and 22% smaller than solc 0.8.30, helping deployments fit under Ethereum’s 24 kB limit. The compiler passes all Solidity tests and 24 production projects, confirming readiness for mainstream use. Built on LLVM, solx provides a future-proof foundation for RISC-V and WASM environments.
  • 200 ms Block Times (v29): Completed development and deployment of sub-second block times, reducing block interval to 200 ms. This delivers a major UX improvement, making ZKsync chains responsive enough for high-frequency trading, gaming, and consumer applications.

2. Decentralization & Security: Trustless Infrastructure at Scale

Core governance and sequencing infrastructure progressed with new roles and protocol upgrades.

  • Interop Messaging (Mainnet, Sep 1, 2025 - v29): Shipped protocol-level interop messaging to mainnet, enabling ZKsync chains to share and store commitment roots via ZKsync Gateway. Cross-chain communication now supports Merkle-proof-based verification of messages, allowing trustless, low-fee interoperability without bridges.
  • Fast Subjective Finality (v29): Introduced fast finality via pre-commitments of transaction execution status on L1. ZKsync chains connected to Gateway can now validate transaction outcomes before full batch finalization, allowing exchanges and partners to locally confirm results earlier and deliver smoother user experiences.
  • ValidatorTimelock Upgrade: Updated ValidatorTimelock to an upgradeable contract under ZKsync Governance. It now supports distinct roles for commit, prove, execute, and revert, aligning operator powers with protocol governance standards.

3. Privacy: Enterprise-Grade Confidentiality for ZKsync chains

ZKsync delivered key privacy and compliance modules to make Prividium the institutional standard.

  • Interoperable Prividiums Pilot (Jun-Jul 2025):

    Completed the first institutional pilot with over 35 financial institutions, showcasing cross-border payments and intraday repo across interoperable Prividium chains. Institutions validated private settlement, regulatory auditability, and near-instant interoperability anchored to Ethereum.

  • Selective Disclosure:

    Delivered selective disclosure for Prividium, introducing two disclosure types that can optionally enable public transparency while keeping all other transaction data confidential onchain.

    • Bytecode Disclosure: Reveals a contract’s bytecode hash with a cryptographic proof, allowing verification that deployed code matches expected values without exposing source code.
    • Token Supply Disclosure: Publishes verified ERC-20 total and locked balances, enabling accurate circulating supply calculations without revealing individual holder information.

  • Permissioning System:

    Deployed a role-based permissioning system for Prividium, enabling operators to define and enforce granular access controls across participants, assets, and transaction types. The system integrates with enterprise identity providers (IdPs) to simplify KYC, KYB, and broader compliance enforcement.

4. Developer & User Experience

Tooling and portal improvements simplified developer onboarding and user interaction.

  • ZKsync OS Beta:

    Building on the alpha, the team released the first ZKsync OS Beta (formerly Boojum OS) focused on validating the State Transition Function (STF) and core protocol components. The beta introduced the first RISC-V aggregation program to combine proofs across blocks, stabilized the L1 interaction layer, and added early integrations such as public input structure, batch commitment and execution, forced deploys, and Anvil-based testing.

    A staging environment combining ZKsync OS and native EVM execution was deployed with full end-to-end proving, allowing developers to test contracts against production-grade infrastructure. Security validation was performed by OpenZeppelin, Taran Space, and Audittens, marking the shift from core protocol readiness toward developer-facing SDK and tooling enablement in upcoming releases.

  • ZKsync Portal Updates: Portal upgraded to support bridging to and from the ZKsync Gateway, providing a unified UX for asset transfers across ZKsync chains.

  • Bridgehub Refactor: Extracted Bridgehub functionality into a dedicated ChainAssetHandler contract, responsible for connecting each chain to either ZKsync Gateway or L1. This modularization improves security, reduces complexity, and simplifies audits.

5. Interoperability & Elastic Network

ZKsync advanced its Elastic Network architecture with Gateway adoption and chain launches.

  • Era Migration to Gateway (Jul 28, 2025): Era, ZKsync’s largest chain, successfully migrated to ZKsync Gateway. From this point, settlement and cross-chain communication are routed through Gateway, aligning Era with the Elastic Network’s canonical interoperability standard.
  • Chains deployed to Testnet:
    • Sandbox (Aug 2025)
    • ADI (Sept 2025)
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