**7-13 August 2023**

As I mentioned in my week 3 update, there has been a significant change in the direction I am taking in my research. I have teamed up with Nilu, Rachit, Ella, and we will be doing a comprehenseive research on zk-rollups around the topics of sequencer and prover decentralization, rollup economics and value flow between L1 and L2, and optimal sequencer/prover reward structures, along with simulations for more insights.

Working as a team will allow us to emprace a much larger scope and prepare a more in-depth research.

This is super interesting and I am very glad about the new direction. The zk rabbithole has been capturing me for quite a while, and it will be great opportunity to learn more and get involved in actual research.

The project proposal can be found [here](https://github.com/eth-protocol-fellows/cohort-four/blob/master/projects/prover-incentives-in-zk-rollups.md).

In order to dive deeper into this topic, this week I have studied several articles and research docs:

General:
- [An Incomplete Guide to Rollups](https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/01/05/rollup.html)
- [The Complete Guide to Rollups](https://members.delphidigital.io/reports/the-complete-guide-to-rollups)
- [Understanding rollup economics from first principles](https://barnabe.substack.com/p/understanding-rollup-economics-from)
- [A normie's guide to rollups](https://www.preethikasireddy.com/post/a-normies-guide-to-rollups)
- [The economics of rollup fees](https://www.alexbeckett.xyz/the-economics-for-rollup-fees/)
- [Decentralizing zk-Rollups by Scroll founder](https://hackmd.io/@yezhang/SkmyXzWMY)

On sequencers:
- https://ethresear.ch/t/decentralized-l2-sequencing-w-native-ibc-interoperability/14944
- https://prestwich.substack.com/p/the-definitive-guide-to-sequencing
- https://discourse.aztec.network/t/request-for-proposals-decentralized-sequencer-selection/350
- https://twitter.com/benafisch/status/1636794650324537345?lang=en
- https://hackmd.io/@ttsao/SysLp4sOh#/
- https://hackmd.io/@EspressoSystems/SharedSequencing
- https://hackmd.io/@EspressoSystems/EspressoSequencer
- https://blockworks.co/news/shared-sequencers-decentralization

On provers:

- https://ethresear.ch/t/zkps-two-step-submission-algorithm-an-implementation-of-decentralized-provers/15504
- https://figmentcapital.medium.com/decentralized-proving-proof-markets-and-zk-infrastructure-f4cce2c58596
- https://discourse.aztec.network/t/proposal-sequencer-selection-b52-pbs-with-a-federated-prover-network/351
- https://discourse.aztec.network/t/whisk-y-should-we-use-whisk-for-sequencer-selection/365
- https://discourse.aztec.network/t/proposal-sequencer-selection-cookie-jar/448
- https://discourse.aztec.network/t/proposal-sequencer-selection-irish-coffee/483
- https://discourse.aztec.network/t/ideas-on-a-proving-network/724

PBS-day: Modular summit - afternoon talks related to rollups
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYH7n4M016A

Zk-rollup research:

I have started a deep analysis of two zk-rollups, Scroll and Taiko, and will continue with that next week. I have also reached out to the project teams for more information.