Scroll Joint Creation Haichen Interview: Mainnet Launch is a New Starting Point, Focusing on Real-World Application Ecosystem

Scroll, as a highly regarded open-source Layer 2 solution led by Asian entrepreneurs, officially launched its Mainnet in October 2023 after two years of intensive development and one year of testing. As of October 27, the total locked value on the Scroll chain has exceeded $19.3 million, with over 147,000 Mainnet wallet addresses and a total of over 860,000 verified transactions.

Recently, Scroll co-hosted the ETH Hong Kong event at Cyberport in Hong Kong. As the first Ethereum community gathering in Hong Kong, it attracted numerous developers to participate. During the event, Scroll co-founder Haichen Shen gave an exclusive interview, sharing the development history and future plans of Scroll.

Haichen has previously worked on AI compilers at Amazon Web Services. He was introduced to zero-knowledge proof technology while participating in Ethereum community activities and believes that this field has great potential for developing practical products and systems, ultimately achieving Ethereum scalability, accommodating more transactions and reducing user fees.

When discussing why the Ethereum conference is being held in Hong Kong, Haichen stated that while Hong Kong is business-oriented, it lacks an active Ethereum community. The event aims to attract Hong Kong students and Ethereum developers from the Asia-Pacific region to participate, learn about the latest developments, and expand the influence of the Ethereum community in the Asia-Pacific region.

This hackathon attracted nearly 100 projects, and finally, 16 will be selected for the finals. These projects mainly focus on providing infrastructure services for Ethereum or Layer2, as well as innovative applications that improve user experience.

Regarding the significance of Scroll officially launching the zkEVM Mainnet, Haichen believes this is an important milestone and a new starting point. After long-term testing and security optimization, Scroll now allows users to bridge assets from Ethereum to Scroll and use various applications. In the future, Scroll will continue to introduce new features to enhance security, reduce usage costs, and provide developers with more tools to build innovative applications.

One week after the Mainnet launch, the ecological development of Scroll is basically in line with expectations. Currently, about $15 million has entered the Scroll chain, and some DeFi applications have begun to generate transactions. It is noteworthy that the growth rate of contract deployments has exceeded the growth of TVL, which indicates that more innovative applications may be launched on Scroll in the future.

In terms of technology selection, Scroll adopts a zkRollup solution based on zkEVM, focusing on EVM equivalence. Haichen explained that zk technology can provide users with faster and stronger security guarantees, while EVM equivalence ensures that developers can directly develop on Layer 2 without modifying existing tools, thereby reducing potential risks.

Scroll aims for high compatibility with the Ethereum EVM in its technical implementation, creating corresponding zk circuit components for each EVM instruction. In addition, Scroll supports various precompiled contracts to facilitate zk application development. In terms of the sequencer, Scroll is customized based on Go-Ethereum, ensuring high compatibility with the Ethereum API.

Regarding the ecological development plan, Haichen stated that Scroll will first improve infrastructure service support, such as RPC, indexing, cross-chain bridges, and oracles. This will be followed by a wave of DeFi application deployments. In the long term, Scroll is committed to building an open and neutral platform that equally supports various projects, but will pay more attention to real-world applications, such as stablecoin payments and AA wallet projects. In addition, Scroll plans to launch incentive activities for developers, which may take the form of NFTs.

When talking about the challenges in the entrepreneurial process, Haichen stated that they mainly come from the technical level, especially encountering many unexpected issues when building zkEVM. By collaborating with the open-source community, Scroll continuously optimizes the solution, ultimately reaching the expected level.

Regarding the competition and development of the Layer 2 ecosystem, Haichen believes that the entire industry is still in its infancy. In the future, it is necessary to further improve the degree of decentralization, enhance security, and attract more developers to participate. He emphasized that the Layer 2 market is not a zero-sum game, but rather a field with immense growth potential, and he looks forward to the emergence of more innovative projects in the future.