Polygon’s New ZK Proving System, ‘Plonky3,’ Comes as Open-Source Toolkit

A proving system plays a vital role in zero-knowledge rollups and strengthens the cryptographic safeguards of multi-layered distributed networks. This technology generates proofs, which encapsulate off-chain transactions, enabling their transmission to the primary blockchain, such as Ethereum. The system verifies “whether a transaction was processed accurately or if the state of the blockchain has been correctly updated,” as stated in a press release.

Polygon Labs announced that the software once known as Plonky3 is now freely accessible to the public, distributed under both MIT and Apache licenses.

In a 2022 press release, Polygon described the previous proving system of the company, named Plonky2, as “a specialized system dedicated to swift recursion through hardware optimization,” while Plonky3 is presented as an “open-source developer kit” that enables ZK cryptography enthusiasts to construct their individual virtual machines.

In 2022, Polygon unveiled Plonky2, boasting its developers that it was over 100 times quicker than the available alternatives at that moment.

In my analysis as a technology expert, I’d say that Polygon’s Plonky2 had some performance challenges and lacked the required generality to meet our needs to some extent. However, we view it as an essential component of Polygon’s future technological advancements.

Polygon and ZK cryptography

“Brendan Farmer, a co-founder at Polygon, explained in an interview that the proving system is essential for efficiently and practically handling the proof process.”

Polygon has wholeheartedly adopted zero-knowledge technology, a highly sought-after trend in the blockchain industry. In 2021, this company made significant strides by acquiring both Hermez and Mir teams, who were at the forefront of zero-knowledge cryptography development at that time. Farmer and Lubarov founded Mir jointly.

After that point, Polygon was among the pioneering teams to introduce a zero-knowledge rollup in the year 2023. Subsequently, they obtained Toposware, a third company, to further expand their knowledge and capabilities in this area of zero-knowledge solutions.

Previously, we utilized Plonky2 in addition to several standalone proof libraries – one from the Miden team and another from Hermez, both belonging to Polygon, Lubarov explained to CoinDesk. Our current intention is to consolidate these under a unified codebase and framework.