Zeroing in on Scalable Yield with Beefy on zkSync Era
It’s finally here. The innovation we’ve all been waiting for. Some said it wouldn’t be possible, or would take decades to reach this point. But it seems that any doubts about this technology’s potential have been a red rag to the bull… and at Beefy, we’re always bullish 🐮
Today, we’re thrilled to announce Beefy’s launch on zkSync - our first ZK rollup chain built to scale the Ethereum blockchain. This also marks Beefy’s 20th blockchain, a milestone few others have achieved. As we move forward into the latest innovations in blockchain technology, it feels like the end of a major chapter of our story, and like a new Era is beginning.
Zero-knowledge Rollups
In case you’ve been living under a rock for the last few years, zero-knowledge (or “ZK”) rollups are a fundamental new technology aiming to scale transactions on Ethereum. They achieve this using the power of ZK proofs - a technique for demonstrating the existence, correctness or authenticity of some information without the need to expose, transmit or store it.
By achieving high levels of security with the small amounts of data needed for ZK proofs, ZK rollups can batch orders of magnitude more transactions into the same amount of blockspace, and do so instantaneously without any delay for final settlement (which is one of the key drawbacks of other rollup technologies).
Having emerged on a conceptual level in the 1980s, many commentators had thought until quite recently that current technology was still a long way from being able to achieve scalable and efficient ZK proofs. However, a number of breakthroughs in the last decade have enabled workable scaling solutions to reach production years earlier than expected. And today, we’re launching on our very first ZK rollup…
zkSync Era
zkSync is one of the first projects to bring its ZK rollup solutions to market, after the successful launch of its Era chain on 24 March 2023. The team behind zkSync - Matter Labs - have been working on their scaling solution for several years now, including launching their zkSync Lite chain in 2020 (which didn’t include smart contract functionality), and hosting a live testnet for what would become Era for over a year now.
Having been impressed with the results and performance of their testing, the team at Matter Labs have been consistently but conscientiously working towards launch for months now, focussing first and foremost on the safety and stability of the product. The launch is being styled as an “Alpha Mainnet”, meaning that it is a full live production system, though final kinks may still be being ironed out. Users will also experience higher gas prices initially, as the cost of the underlying Ethereum transaction is naturally socialized by increasing activity on Era.
Get Me There
With over $100 million in value locked on Era already, we at Beefy are extremely excited to seize the amazing new yield farming opportunities on the chain. And here’s how you can come along with us:
To get started on zkSync Era, either head over to the official zkSync Bridge or make use of supported third party bridges like Multichain or Orbiter. Though the main bridge only supports expensive transactions on Ethereum, third parties are already facilitating lower cost alternatives from chains like Polygon PoS and Arbitrum One, so it’s wise to shop around.
Make sure to bridge yourself over some ETH, which is the gas currency you’ll need to transact on Era. You can also already bridge a variety of different types of tokens, including stablecoins and some governance tokens. With that said, there’s plenty of liquidity on Era already, so it may make more sense to just bridge ETH and swap once on chain. You can see the details of your bridged funds using the zkSync Era Explorer.
Once you’re up and running, it’s time to start exploring dozens of new applications and projects. Make sure to check the DeFi Llama page to find out where the volume and liquidity is at the moment. Or if you’re just looking for secure and stable yield, from the comforts of your favorite UI, then look no further…
Velocore
We at Beefy are thrilled to be kicking off our adventure on zkSync with our latest partner. Velocore is a ve(3,3) DEX built solely to service liquidity on zkSync Era. The protocol is modeled on Solidly and Velodrome Finance, which Beefy was among the first to partner with. Having seen the success of those relationships in bringing enormous yields to our users, we’re excited at the prospect of another strong partnership on zkSync.
Velocore’s $VC governance token will be used to manage emissions to its various pools. As an early veNFT holder for the protocol, Beefy will be sure to maximize returns on all of our Velocore vaults, and deliver them together with the magic of autocompounding to our users. We also look forward to the opportunity to get involved with bribing on Velocore to incentivize liquidity for our preferred pools and offer even more rewards to Beefy users on zkSync.
To start with, we’ll be launching 3 vaults with Velocore, covering some of the favourite token pairing we’ve seen so far, to be followed by many more in the coming months.
Zeroing In
Having delivered our service onto 20 different blockchains now, we at Beefy have honed our formula for safe, secure and simple yield at optimal rates. But with each new chain that launches, we see the Web 3.0 ecosystem zero in on the perfect formula for decentralized finance. With zkSync Era, we hope that the community has finally solved the problem of Ethereum scalability, and ushered in a new age for DeFi.
Beefy will be there every step of the way to deliver you the yields you know and love, from the newest and most innovative protocols in the space. We hope to see you there!
Beefy App | Velocore | zkSync Bridge | zkSync Era Explorer | Era Docs