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Economics

Scroll has no specific projections or economic incentives as the platform itself is not yet live. What Scroll does offer is an introduction to what the platform envisions creating through the utility behind zk-rollups and the Scroll zkEVM design.

Scrolls aim to standardize and accelerate the creation of an entirely new market surrounding proofs. Layer-2 proof outsourcing would be the basis of value creation for the market through zk-proofs. The value of this concept can be considered in an example. Say a platform has computation needs that greatly exceed the platform's own abilities. That computation can be outsourced to a third party that can perform the computation more efficiently and returns the output to the original platform.

An infographic of blockchain scaling. Source: Medium\pramodAIML

Without zk-proofs, there must be trust in the system between the platform and the third party that the computation is executed correctly and sent back appropriately. This can create issues for the platform down the road. Rather than trusting a third party, zk-proofs make it possible to receive an output proof showing computational integrity while also enabling a higher degree of privacy. ZK-proofs also enable the platform to selectively hide inputs within a computation. This protects sensitive data or withholds information to avoid giving third parties more data than necessary.

There are multiple use cases for such a model within the cryptocurrency industry already. Some examples of zk-proof use cases are:

• Layer-2 scaling
• Decentralized storage
• Privacy applications
• Data compressors

Above all, this design allows for a higher degree of efficiency in the cryptoeconomy as a whole. In addition to adding a layer of value creation in the proof market, Scroll's model will enable developers to deploy more complicated smart contract systems without worrying about gas limitations of computational load. New applications can be developed off-chain while the zk-proofs are trustlessly committed on-chain. This entire process is also boosted by the robust security of the Ethereum Mainnet.

Scroll Value Creation

ZK proofs have been criticized heavily due to the prohibitive downside of being notoriously slow and costly in terms of proof generation. ZK proofs demand computation that is magnitudes larger than the original executed program’s own computational demand, making the process of utilizing ZK proofs severely inefficient.

For Scroll to be successful in reducing the computational overhead of smart contract platforms like Ethereum, this efficiency limitation has to be overcome. Scroll, and the greater zkEVM community, is exploring several ways with which to optimize proof generation:

• Hardware Acceleration: Heavy computations have been proven to be accelerated by specialized computing units like GPUs, becoming a focal point for hardware research
• Optimizing Proofs: Computations involved in proof generation typically scale with an undefined amount of complexity. Finding the most appropriate ways to optimize the data contained in proofs greatly increases the ability for ZK proofs to provide a net benefit to scaling networks. This includes ways with which to execute similar proofs in parallel, greatly increasing the computational speed of ZK proofs.
• Alternative Proofs: There are many theoretical designs and concepts surrounding proof systems which may offer trade offs surrounding speed, reliability, scalability, and cost. While there is potential for improvements to proof systems in general, there is also an added possibility of a more diverse proof market depending on the needs of a particular network.

Ultimately, Scroll’s value proposition relies on the ability of ZK proofs to become competitive in terms of cost and speed. With that in mind, the emergence of a novel proof market, added competition would help to accelerate the usability of ZK proofs as a means of scaling blockchain networks. The blockchain industry benefits in two ways from this:

• Proof generation efficiency improves
• Proof systems become more diverse