What is Taiko

An Ethereum-equivalent ZK-Rollup allows for scaling Ethereum without sacrificing security or compatibility. Advancements in Zero-Knowledge Proof cryptography and its application towards proving Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) execution have led to a flourishing of ZK-EVMs, now with further design decisions to choose from. Taiko aims to be a decentralized ZK-Rollup, prioritizing Ethereum-equivalence. Supporting all existing Ethereum applications, tooling, and infrastructure is the primary goal and benefit of this path. Besides the maximally compatible ZK-EVM component, which proves the correctness of EVM computation on the rollup, Taiko must implement a layer-2 blockchain architecture to support it.

Taiko aims to be a fully Ethereum-equivalent ZK-Rollup. We aim to scale Ethereum in a manner that emulates Ethereum itself at a technical level, and a principles level.

Taiko consists of three main parts:

• the ZK-EVM circuits (for proof generation)
• the L2 rollup node (for managing the rollup chain)
• the protocol on L1 (for connecting these two parts together for rollup protocol verification).

Blocks in the Taiko L2 blockchain consist of collections of transactions that are executed sequentially. New blocks can be appended to the chain to update its state, which can be calculated by following the protocol rules for the execution of the transactions.