Don’t get me wrong, both are great technologies and both are useful in many situations. However, the Ethereum roadmap changed entirely and is now relying fully on L2s for scalability, and looks like most L2s are funding ZK development way more than optimistic development.
This is not to say that optimistic tech is bad, it’s just that zero-knowledge has a slight edge plus has a lot more room for growth.
Zero-knowledge proofs are generally faster than optimistic proofing, they also cheaper and are WAY more private.
The way that ZK proofs work is through providing only the necessary basic information needed for the transaction to be validated without having to disclose any private or sensitive information regarding the identity of the user.
This is simply not possible with optimistic proofs. It is only a feature that zero-knowledge proofs can execute which explains why L2s are so focused on ZK.
Then there’s the fact that ZK tech has more room for growth compared to optimistic tech.
One could arguably say that optimistic tech has neared its peak in development whereas zero-knowledge development is still getting started.
We’re currently seeing a battle between SNARK and STARK technologies with both providing favorable features depending on the situation.
Some L2s (namely Polygon) utilize both.
In fact, one of the main reasons I like Polygon so much is that they not only utilize SNARKs and STARKs, but they also utilize optimistic tech along with ZK tech
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Miden (zkSTARK)
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Zero (recursive SNARK)
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Hermez (zkSNARK)
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Avail (Validium)
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Nightfall (Optimistic)
With all of that being said, I still think that optimistic tech will always be needed on Ethereum and in won’t be phased out.
There will always be situations where it makes sense to use optimistic tech.
I just think that the main focus will soon start shifting toward ZK as we see more than more L2s compete for better and faster development.
Eitherway, the new Ethereum roadmap will give L2s a huge boost in throughput so it really doesn’t matter when it comes to scalability. All I really care about is privacy, which ZK definitely takes the edge for.
