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Matter Labs, the team behind Ethereum’s layer-2 scaling solution, zkSync, has confirmed that 921 ETH worth $1.7 million is currently stuck in one of its new smart contracts, GemstoneIDO.
Despite the issue, the firm claims that the funds are safe. Matter Labs have found an elegant solution to rescue them, which accumulated during the Gemholic token sale.
@GemholicECO, who ran into a problem with their smart contract on zkSync Era, has reached out to us for support, which we provided.
— zkSync ∎ (@zksync) April 7, 2023
We'd like to give the community an update and further context on their issue in full transparency, as we always have and always will.
🧵👇
The issue originated in the .transfer() function in the GemstoneIDO smart contract, part of a project run by the GemholicECO ecosystem. Matter Labs identified that the problem could have been prevented if the contract was deployed on a testnet first, but it was deployed on the Era mainnet instead.
The erroneous function originated from zkSync Era, a new type of Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) zero-knowledge proof rollup that executes smart contracts significantly faster than on the base. However, zkSync Era is not equivalent to EVM, meaning some functions will operate differently in the new environment.
Nonetheless, Matter Labs accepted responsibility for the error and gave the zkSync ecosystem its word it would work relentlessly to resolve similar issues in the future. The team has stressed that zkSync Era is cheaper than other EVM rollups, but this design choice has specific upsides and trade-offs.
zkEVMs are complex systems that are in the process of maturing. Even though zkSync Era is still in Alpha, we’ve already got a thriving ecosystem.
— zkSync ∎ (@zksync) April 7, 2023
Gemholic has publicly acknowledged the efforts of zkSync and expressed their gratitude while also offering a sincere apology for their actions.
Layer-2 activity shoots up
The Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution, zkSync Era, has witnessed a significant surge in activity since its launch in late March. According to the project, this surge in activity is unprecedented among all other scaling solutions in such a short period of time.
In the two weeks since its launch, zkSync Era has become the third-most used layer-2 solution and has the fourth-highest Total Value Locked (TVL) compared to other layer-2 solutions, according to L2beat.
Despite this progress, Arbitrum One remains the leader in the market, with a TVL of $6 billion and a market share of 66%, while zkSync has a TVL of just $155 million.