Polygon Co-Founder Makes Case Against Ethereum Verkle Trees

Polygon (MATIC) co-founder Mihailo Bjelic and Ethereum (ETH) co-founder Vitalik Buterin appear to be debating the suitability of having Verkle Trees on Ethereum with the former opposing the idea.

Is Verkle Tree Needed For Ethereum?

The debate between the duo took place on the X app, and it suggests that there are uncertainties surrounding Ethereum and its data storage for optimal functionality.

It started with Bjelic wanting to know if switching Ethereum to Verkle Trees was the right step to make. To make his argument, the crypto boss highlighted that zk-fication of the current Ethereum network is quite likely in the near future.

In no time, there was a response from Buterin who pointed to the fact that “ZK-ifying keccak merkle patricia trees with worst case 300 MB witness sizes is a non-starter.” He went on to explain how the Verkle Trees were designed to be zk-friendly, a capability that is not present in the Merkle tree that Ethereum currently utilizes.

ZK-ifying keccak merkle patricia trees with worst case 300 MB witness sizes is a non-starter.

The verkle tree spec is designed to be zk friendly (eg. choice of curve, using pedersen as the hash)

So switching to verkle helps with ZKing the L1.

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) April 12, 2024

Ordinarily, the current primary data structure utilized within the Ethereum blockchain network is derived from Merkle Patricia trees. Due to its limitations, there is a plan to have it replaced by Verkle Trees that have shorter proofs and more bandwidth. 

Based on the capacity of Polygon zkEVM, Bjelic stated that the current structure can accommodate the 300MB benchmark outlined by the Ethereum co-founder. Even better, Bjelic said it could achieve this result in a total block time of 12 seconds. 

The only likely challenge is that this would require approximately 10 server-class CPUs. 

Polygon zkEVM Makes a Push To Upgrade

This talk from Bjelic about the Polygon zkEVM comes after the protocol made a move earlier this year to transform into a Type 2 ZK-EVM, thus bringing it closer to the Ethereum mainnet. 

Precisely, the transition would make Polygon zkEVM a Type 2 ZK-EM that will empower developers to deploy their codes on Polygon zk-EVM exactly as it is on Ethereum.

This upgrade would introduce a paradigm shift for developers building on the smart contract protocol. For its implementation, a 10-day timelock for the Etrog Upgrade went live on the mainnet in February. 

There are still speculations about the upgradability to a Type 2 ZK-EVM especially as the Polygon’s zkEVM went down for nearly 10 hours almost a month after Etrog Upgrade went live. Meanwhile, the issue on the Polygon zkEVM which is in mainnet beta has been fixed.