What is Consensys?

Consensys is a blockchain software company that is better known for creating the MetaMask self-custodial wallet, a household name in the crypto industry.  

Established in 2014 by the co-founder of Ethereum Joseph Lubin, Consensys is focused on developing the Ethereum network ecosystem through its blockchain incubator and venture studio. 

In addition, Consensys also provides consultancy services to global companies such as Microsoft and Shell, assisting them to successfully implement blockchain solutions in their respective industries.   

To date, Consensys has raised USD $726M through multiple funding rounds from VCs and global investors such as Microsoft, SoftBank and Temasek among others. It is currently has a valuation of USD $7bn. 

Also Read: Marouen Zelleg Of ConsenSys On Metamask, Unlocking Web3.0, And Institutional Adoption

What is Linea?

Linea is among several zkEVM solutions that seeks to combine the security and performance of zkProofs with full EVM compatibility, Consensys opened it to public testnet on 28 March 2023.

Linea is designed to be highly composable, flexible and scalable. Developers can natively integrate the dApps on Linea with the Consensys infrastructure and swiftly join the testnet via the MetaMask extension.  

When Linea launched its private testnet earlier in January this year, 1.5M transactions were processed in the first few weeks following its launch.

Linea vs. Other Zk L2s

While Ethereum’s L2 scaling ecosystem is still largely dominated by optimistic rollup solutions such as Arbitrium and Optimism, several zkEVM projects have achieved key development milestones.

Both Matter Labs and Polygon have launched their zkEVM Era Mainnet Alpha and zkEVM Mainnet Beta respectively on 24 March and 27 March. This was closely followed by Linea’s launch on 28 March. 

While zkEVM projects compete with one another to be the first mover in the near term, they are likely to compete on EVM equivalence in the longer term.

Simply put, EVM equivalence refers to the ease with which developers can copy and paste the dApps code between EVM-equivalent rollups without any need for significant retooling. 

A detailed description of the various zkVM competitors can be found here.

An onchain analysis reveals the number of unique deposit addresses and transactions in the days leading up to and post the mainnet launch for Linea, zkSync Era and Polygon zkEVM rose significantly.

It is evident that users are bridging over to the respective mainnets in anticipation of potential airdrops.

How To Bridge To and Participate On Linea

There are multiple ways to qualify for a potential airdrop, the most basic of which is to connect your wallet to the Linea Bridge, select the amount of Goerli ETH you want to transfer to Linear and approve the transfer. 

A comprehensive step-by-step basic guide is available here.

Crypto Twitter has also comprehensively covered a list of things that are currently available to test on Linea, in order to qualify for a potential Linea airdrop.

Upcoming Developments and Partnerships

Consensys Linea intends to host a community call where the team will announce plans for developers and users alike to explore Linea and their partner dApps via a virtual journey with multiple quests.

It has also secured partnerships with protocols such as decentralized exchange Uniswap and decentralized social media platform Lens Protocol, a full list of partners can be found here. 

Most recently, Covalent a Web 3 data service provider and Connext a secure interoperability protocol have both partnered with Linea.

Covalent’s partnership with Consensys Linea Goerli testnet provides the Covalent community that consists of Web 3 research analysts and developers with data and trends that exist within Linea Goerli. 

The integration between Connext and Linea has led to the launch of a new dApp called Portfolio on MetaMask, where users can soon perform crosschain swaps directly in their wallet or through the MetaMask browser extension.

Conclusion

As various zkEVM projects have either launched or are slated to launch their respective mainnets in 2023, the battle to scale Ethereum rages on.

However, it is important to note that the zkEVM technology is still in its early stages.

There are also still areas of concern amidst the development of zkEVMs in terms of their hardware design, decentralization of sequencers and tokenomics.  

Nonetheless, this is still an interesting time for zkEVM projects, as they seek to gain dominance and market share from not only each other but also from their optimistic rollup counterparts.

Also Read: SOLAR (SXP) Gains 300% This Month – A Deep Dive Into The Sustainability-Focused Layer 1

“[Editor’s Note: This article does not represent financial advice. Please do your research before investing.]

Featured Image Credit: ChainDebrief 

This article was written by Clarence Lee and Edited by Yusoff Kim