=nil;'s zkSharding the Holy Grail in the age-old struggle of Scaling Ethereum.

### **=nil;'s zkSharding the Holy Grail in the age-old struggle of Scaling Ethereum.** **This introductory blog post was directly inspired by [zkSharding Manifesto](https://cms.nil.foundation/uploads/zk_Sharding_Manifesto_8286652990.pdf), peer behind the curtain and dive into the thinking process of =nil;'s Core Development Team, and =nil;'s innovative approach on the age-old struggle of Scaling Ethereum.** **TL;DR** The beauty of **zkSharding** lies in its ability to simplify the complex. At its core, **zkSharding** combines **zkRollups** with **Sharding**, providing a scalable, and secure L2 solution. Potentially appliable to **L3** and **L4** by ensuring **Horizontal Scaling** without sacrificing the advantages of a unified execution layer. **Direct Ethereum L1 Data Access**, and cut costs on auditing by introducing **Type-1 zkLLVM compiled with zkLLVM**, essentially production-grade EVM **without manual circuit reimplementation**. **=nil;’s zkSharding** significantly **minimizes data**, **security,** and **liquidity fragmentation by design** creating a unified execution environment. The **=nil;** ensures fast proof generation through open market competition aka **[Proof Market](https://docs.nil.foundation/proof-market/)**. **For Developers**, this means enhanced transaction throughput, and reduced fees without compromising on security. Full composability and seamless Integration of already deployed dApps on Ethereum's L2, unified development environment, simplifying the dapps deployment process. **Developers** can directly integrate zkSharding into their existing smart contracts, minimizing the learning curve **Here are our Key innovations:** - **Horizontal Scalability**: Allows horizontal scalability without compromising security or efficiency, addressing limitations of vertical scaling. - A combination of **zkRollups** and **Sharding** enables extensive **Horizontal Scalability**, potentially applicable to L3, and L4. Achieves an estimated 60,000 ERC-20 transfers per second with roughly 400 nodes - **Tailored Environment***:* A Type-1 zkEVM, fully EVM bytecode equivalent, offers a tailored environment for applications with high demands on time, memory, and algorithmic complexity. - **Reduced Fragmentation**: **=nil;**’s zkSharding significantly minimizes data, security, and liquidity fragmentation by design. Creating a unified execution environment as each shard is a part of the whole cluster. - ***S*ecurity** is ensured through native staking or restaking existing staking pools, establishing decentralization from the project's inception. - Enables L2 applications to call **Ethereum's original data**, ensuring unified and seamless integration. - **Type-1 zkEVM Compiled via zkLLVM provides *Enhanced Security:* =nil;’s zkEVM, compiled via zkLLVM from a production-grade EVM, eliminates manual circuit reimplementation, reducing security risks.** - **Type-1 zkEVM Compiled via zkLLVM provides *Auditable Security:* The zkEVM circuit is easily auditable, providing a great opportunity to cut down on auditing costs and avoid potential exploits.** - [**Proof Market**](https://docs.nil.foundation/proof-market/)*: Marketplace-based Proof Generation:* Ensures fastest L1-finality and cost-effective proof generation through a competitive marketplace-based approach. **zkSharding** Traditional Layer-2 solutions grapple with scalability issues due to state fragmentation. **=nil;** challenges these limitations by pushing the boundaries of Ethereum scalability while preserving the advantages of a unified execution environment. **=nil;** employs a provable sharding protocol that achieves horizontal scalability without compromising on security or efficiency. **Dynamic Composable Scaling** **=nil;** achieves dynamic composability by partitioning its state into primary and secondary shards. The primary shard synchronizes and consolidates data from secondary shards, ensuring unified liquidity and data through a cross-shard messaging protocol. Validators supervise each shard, providing security through periodic rotation and verification of state transitions to the main shard using **zkEVM.** **=nil;'s zkEVM via zkLLVM** The Type-1 zkEVM is a significant feature, compiled with zkLLVM, providing security, auditability, and performance. By automatically generating circuits from high-level code, =nil; ensures security, auditability, and upgradeability. This bytecode-compatible zkEVM reduces development time and efforts while remaining flexible and future-proof. **zkRollup with Ethereum's Security and Data Availability** Primary and secondary shards adopt different approaches to data availability (DA). The main shard utilizes Ethereum as its DA, while secondary shards can use Ethereum or opt for a distinct solution. This approach ensures state data recovery in emergencies. **Transparent Ethereum Data Access** **=nil;** prioritizes trustless access to Ethereum state, offering full composability and transparent integration through the Data Provider module. This module synchronizes information with an external database, ensuring that Ethereum's Casper FFG consensus validates the most recent proof. **=nil;** and **zkSharding** marks the culmination of 4 years of development by **=nil; Foundation**, aiming to be the first composable, scalable, and universal Ethereum L2 zkRollup solution. **🚀Feel inspired yet to try out =nil;’s toolchain? Head over to [Docs](https://nil.foundation/) 🚀** If you have any questions, join **=nil;** builders in our **[Discord](https://discord.gg/9zjcCU5vDc)** community or **[Telegram](https://t.me/nilfoundation). —** Don’t be shy and reach out to the team to share bugs or any hiccups you experience!