ConsenSys And Mastercard Partner To Release Ethereum Scaling Solution

Table of Contents

• Leveraging ZK-Rollups 
• Ethereum’s Latest Surge 
• The Potential Of ConsenSys Rollups 
• Creating Ethereum’s Layer-2 
• A Variety Of Use Cases 
• Mastercard’s Growing Interest 

Consensys and Mastercard have announced the launch of ConsenSys Rollups. ConsenSys Rollups will provide leading financial organizations enterprise-grade scalability, helping them address the key issues and provide “scalability and privacy” capabilities to permissioned applications connected to any blockchain compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine. 

ConsenSys leveraged Mastercard and the help of their engineering team to develop the solution. 

Leveraging ZK-Rollups 

The new scaling solution developed by ConsenSys can be utilized on Ethereum or on Quorum. Quorum is ConsenSys’s private blockchain network. The scaling solution utilizes ZK-Rollups. ZK-Rollups enable participating parties to demonstrate their knowledge about relevant data without sharing the actual information with another participating party. 

ZK-Rollups have become quite popular as a scaling solution on Ethereum, allowing users to process transactions without having to commit all data to the base chain. This approach reduces the cost of transactions while also allowing for higher throughput. Solutions created with ConsenSys Rollups can achieve 10,000 transactions per second on private chains and 15 on the Ethereum mainnet. 

Ethereum’s Latest Surge 

Ethereum has seen a significant uptick in several areas such as NFTs, DeFi, web 3.0, and the metaverse. Currently, Ethereum usage is at an all-time high, with the blockchain having over 177 million addresses in existence with thousands more added every day. While this points to growing adoption, which is a good thing, it also requires solutions for enhancing scalability and privacy. Developing these solutions was one of the primary reasons why ConsenSys developed the scaling solution for higher scalability on Ethereum and during private use. 

The Potential Of ConsenSys Rollups 

Global Lead of Protocol Engineering at ConsenSys, Madeline Murray, talked about ConsenSys Rollups and the potential it holds to improve privacy and scalability when it comes to blockchains, stating, 

“ConsenSys Rollups enables vastly more scalability in addition to strong privacy protections to both enhance solutions for existing use-cases and enable new use-cases. This innovative solution will help accelerate the building of the future of finance.”

Creating Ethereum’s Layer-2 

ConsenSys Rollups are part of several new solutions that are coming up to create Ethereum’s Layer-2. Ethereum has seen a significant surge in popularity and usage, which means the network is severely stressed in its current state. The strain on the network leads to extremely high gas fees, which in turn prevents users from using the network. Additionally, Ethereum’s competitors offer far lower gas fees, which has seen them grow significantly over the past year. 

To address this issue and create its Layer-2, Ethereum is exploring several options such as sharding, Optimistic Rollups, and ZK-Rollups. Other solutions such as Arbitrum have also gained significant traction. 

A Variety Of Use Cases 

ConsenSys has also stated that its new solution could have several use cases such as with Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), micropayments, and scalable decentralized exchanges, and like other ZK-Rollups solutions, ConsenSys Rollups will also be compatible with all ERC-20 tokens. 

Mastercard’s Growing Interest 

Mastercard has seen its involvement in the crypto space grow significantly as well, as blockchain technology and crypto continue to gather mainstream appeal. Mastercard has also forged a partnership with Circle that will help it settle USDC payments.

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.