Hey Areta, Factory Labs –
First off, big thanks for all the work and thought that went into this proposal. It’s clear there’s strong demand for ecosystem investment, and it’s great to see this level of engagement around it.
Second, we can confirm you incorporated the feedback we provided, including the VC matching program, matching structure to ZK Chain Growth programs, and the steerco design including ML and Foundation participation. I know this was a pretty big back and forth process as we thought through a lot of what would drive real impact and growth in the Elastic Network.
That being said, we’ve decided that Matter Labs won’t be participating in this proposal. For us, the key question remains:
What are the main priorities over the next 6-12 months to position ZKsync for success and realize the vision of the Elastic Network?
Over the past 2-3 months we have been looking at the 2025 strategy and found that Matter Labs should focus on:
-
Establishing ZKsync as the leading hub for ZK technology: as work on our new RISC-V prover and precompiles come into production soon the design space for the types of apps that can be built, specifically those that utilize ZK technology widely opens up. Couple this with how ZKsync uses state differences would put us at a technical edge to be the home for ZK powered apps. This is a blue ocean that we must establish ourselves as the market leader in.
-
Making ZK Stack the go-to choice for well established crypto native teams and institutions moving on chain: ZK Stack is the only Layer 2 stack that enables fully private and permissioned chains coupled with interop. Interop and the ability to manage a private environment on top of Ethereum are differentiators for ZK Stack and requirements for many institutions that are now aggressively looking to upgrade from existing private blockchains that have not kept up in tech or now exploring how to bring more of their businesses processes on chain.
We also view that the next big breakthroughs in consumer and other use cases will come from the crypto native teams. These crypto native ZK Chains are where we should expect most of the new innovation to come from. Both institutional builders and crypto native builders need to see ZK Stack as the go to choice for building high performance applications without compromises. -
Making ZKsync the leading rollup cluster: Just having dozens of ZK Chains isn’t enough. They must all be interconnected with super fast, secure, and cheap interop. This is the only path towards getting to network effects strong enough so that any new ZK Chain joining has a distinct advantage over building anywhere else because of these network effects. This means that ZKsync needs to become not just the leading rollup cluster but also the leading network.
Looking at this proposal again through that refined lens, we struggled to see a direct measurable impact to these goals on the proposal, even after accounting for the changes mentioned above. At this moment, we believe we need programs more centered around protocol development sustainability and acceleration.
As a result, we’ve decided that Matter Lab’s resourcing should focus is on protocol-development-specific token programs—particularly those driving chain-level privacy, innovation in ZK apps, and interoperability. There is still much work left to be done to make ZK Stack the best product out there on the market and the Elastic Network to gain network momentum. This is critical groundwork that we need to lay first.
At the same time, I’ve reached out to @Marco, Executive Director of the ZKsync Foundation, to explore the programs aimed at accelerating ecosystem growth, with a particular focus on marketing and attracting great app teams to come build on one of the ZK Chains on the Elastic Network. The ZKF’s main goal is to further the development of the ecosystem and put it on trajectory to being the top ecosystem for app builders, new tokens, and liquidity. I’ve also connected with the Governance Team to align on broader priorities and discuss Matter Labs’ proposal roadmap for 2025.
Let’s plan to continue that conversation at ETHDenver with the ZKsync Delegates and partners.
I know this isn’t the outcome we all had hoped for, but we’re committed to improving how we coordinate and support the ecosystem. Appreciate the ongoing discussions, and looking forward to finding better ways to collaborate moving forward.
Omar - VP, Head of Business Development at Matter Labs