Scroll Co-founder Haichen Talks About Mainnet Launch and Ecological Development

Recently, Scroll co-founder Haichen gave an exclusive interview to a media outlet, sharing the latest updates on the launch of the Scroll Mainnet and its ecosystem development.

Haichen introduced that he worked at Amazon Web Services (AWS) for many years, mainly engaged in AI compiler-related work. Later, he was exposed to zero-knowledge proof technology while participating in Ethereum community activities and believes that this is a highly promising field that can be used to develop practical products and systems, ultimately achieving Ethereum scalability, accommodating more transactions and reducing user fees.

Speaking about the recent Ethereum community event held in Hong Kong, Haichen stated that it was aimed at expanding the developer ecosystem of Ethereum in Hong Kong and the Asia-Pacific region. The event attracted nearly 100 projects, with 16 ultimately selected to enter the final round of competition. These projects primarily focus on providing infrastructure services for Ethereum or Layer 2, as well as improving user experience.

Regarding the official launch of the Scroll zkEVM Mainnet, Haichen stated that this is an important milestone and a new starting point. After two and a half years of development and one year of testnet operation, Scroll has completed the development of infrastructure components including zkEVM circuits and block generation sequencers. After the Mainnet launch, users can now bridge assets from Ethereum to Scroll and use various applications.

Since its launch a little over a week ago, the ecological development of Scroll has met expectations. Currently, approximately $15 million has entered the Scroll chain, ranking 18th in Layer 2 TVL. More notably, the growth in contract deployments has exceeded the growth in TVL, indicating that more and more developers are beginning to deploy contracts on Scroll, bringing the potential for more innovative applications in the future.

Haichen emphasized the importance of EVM equivalence, believing that it can provide a better experience for users and developers. Developers do not need to install new plugins and can directly port the developer toolkit from Ethereum to Layer 2 without any modifications. This not only reduces the possibility of introducing bugs but also avoids unexpected situations caused by differences in underlying logic.

In terms of technical details, Scroll writes zero-knowledge proof circuits in a way that is closest to EVM, providing corresponding zk circuit components for each EVM instruction. Currently, the number of precompiled contracts supported by Scroll is the highest among zk rollups, with 6 supported. In addition, Scroll's sequencer is based on the Go-Ethereum (Geth) deployment, which is a widely used implementation of Ethereum nodes, providing strong compatibility for users and developers.

Regarding the ecological development plan, Scroll is currently focusing on infrastructure service support, such as RPC, indexing, cross-chain bridges, and oracles. A wave of DeFi application deployments is expected next. In the long run, Scroll is committed to building an open and neutral platform that treats all developers equally. They pay particular attention to real-world application projects, such as stablecoin payments and AA wallet projects, as well as public goods projects that are beneficial to ecological development.

Haichen believes that the entire Layer 2 ecosystem competition is still in its early stages. In the future, further decentralization is needed to reduce reliance on a single project while enhancing security. He believes there is still considerable development space for Layer 2, including the development of new applications to accelerate information exchange between Layer 1 and Layer 2. Finally, he emphasizes that the Layer 2 market is not a zero-sum game but rather a field that can continuously expand.