Polygon (MATIC), an Ethereum Layer 2 solution provider, has finally revealed the highly anticipated scaling upgrade that has been in the works for quite some time. The beta launch of its zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM) mainnet is scheduled for March 27.

Polygon said in a blog post published on February 14 that after three and a half months of “battle testing,” the platform would be ready for a mainnet launch the following month.

It was first released as a test network in December of the previous year and has been marketed as “perfect scalability for Ethereum” ever since.

Since the beginning of this decade, work on the scaling technique known as zk-rollup has progressed continuously. In that span of time, the Polygon zkEVM system has achieved a number of notable goals, as the team mentions.

Among them are the implementation of more than 5,000 smart contracts, the production of more than 75,000 zk proofs, the creation of more than 84,000 wallets, and the conduct of two third-party public audits.

The group said that maintaining a secure environment is their first concern, which is “the reason Polygon zkEVM has undergone a battery of tests and audits,” as they put it.

This technique uses zero-knowledge proofs, which are cryptographic confirmations that, in the context of scaling, allow platforms to verify large volumes of transaction data before it is aggregated and confirmed on Ethereum.

There are other teams besides Polygon that are hard at work on a zkEVM solution. Scaling provider zkSync is creating an EVM-comparable solution with its zkPorter product. This product moves key transaction data off-chain.

Scroll, another company that specializes in scaling solutions, is also developing a zkEVM solution in conjunction with the Ethereum Foundation’s Privacy and Scaling Explorations group.

Additionally, the Ethereum Foundation is providing funding for a project known as Applied ZKP. The goal of this project is to create a zk-rollup that is compatible with EVM.

The group elaborated on the relevance of the technology by stating that EVM’s true equivalence indicates that Ethereum can scale “without having to settle for half measures.”

The easiest approach to growing Ethereum is to maintain the current Ethereum ecosystem, which means that code, tools, and infrastructure need to work together seamlessly. And that is precisely what the Polygon zkEVM project hopes to do.”

Scaling technology offers large reductions in individual transaction costs. According to the researchers, the costs of providing proof for a large batch of hundreds of transactions have dropped to around $0.06, while the costs of providing proof for a direct transfer are less than $0.001.

In November 2021, the company behind Polygon, Matter Labs, completed a Series B funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz and received $50 million. The funds will be used to develop zk-Rollups that are interoperable with EVM.