Author: William M. Peaster, Bankless; Translated by: Deng Tong, Golden Finance
Originally an Ethereum sidechain, Ronin currently has over 1 million daily active users (DAU) and supports a growing ecosystem of games in addition to Axie Infinity.
However, as Ronin thrives, its block space requirements will also grow. As a single sidechain, its functionality can only go so far.
That’s why Sky Mavis, the builders of the network, just announced that they are developing Ronin zkEVM, a L2 solution that will let games launch their own on Ronin.
This is one of the biggest developments announced in the crypto gaming space this year, so let’s break down all the basics.
What is Ronin zkEVM?
Today, Sky Mavis launched Ronin zkEVM, an upcoming zk-rollup L2 compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).
The team is planning to release in Q1 2025, and they are using a modified version of the Polygon Chain Development Kit (CDK) to build the network. It is envisioned as the hub of the chain, meaning games can use this CDK to launch custom L2s on top of the new Ronin L2.
To deploy their own zkEVM chain in this way, ecosystem teams need to stake 250,000 RON, about $600,000 at current prices, to align incentives between their L2 and the main Ronin chain.
Notably, the cross-chain relay system will also allow players to seamlessly interact across different Ronin ecosystem chains without having to manually perform multiple transactions.
Why choose Ronin zkEVM?
Currently, the Ronin sidechain can facilitate millions of daily transactions.
Therefore, expanding the reach of the zkEVM chain is about being ready to support billions of daily transactions and an expanding gaming ecosystem.
Doing this work now also puts Ronin ahead of the curve, as most L2 and L3 will likely be zkEVM in 10 years. Making this transition early will undoubtedly bring various advantages.
In addition to scalability, this new architecture will pave the way for Ronin Games to customize their own blockchain infrastructure to their technical needs and deploy their own games in a permissionless manner for faster onboarding.
Furthermore, securing Ronin will become more profitable and therefore more powerful.
“Developers will need to meet a 250K RON requirement before launching their chain to run a Ronin validator, and this economic activity… can even increase delegators’ staking rewards,” Sky Mavis said in their announcement.
“Shared security, shared rewards. This means that Ronin’s scalability, security, and decentralization will improve together.”
What should I pay attention to?
The first game chain
All games in the Ronin ecosystem today have the potential to launch their own game-specific networks. Keep an eye on Apeiron, CyberKongz, Duet Monsters, Pixels, Puffverse, Ragnorak, and Wild Forest for potential upcoming announcements.
Fully on-chain Ronin game
Fully on-chain games are games that have no external dependencies outside of the chain they run in. They are, in a literal sense, games based on the blockchain, and they offer interesting new interoperability and modification possibilities.
That being said, on-chain games may require many transactions, and Sky Mavis previously avoided them due to congestion issues. The new Ronin zkEVM architecture will make this concern moot and may usher in a new wave of on-chain games on Ronin.
Innovation District
Since the move to zkEVM will make Ronin permissionless, anyone can deploy new chains and games on it, including scammers who want to set traps. It’s important to do your own research before diving into a new project, so Sky Mavis plans to set up an Innovation Zone program to mark high-risk games for players.
Embrace AggLayer
In the future, Sky Mavis is exploring implementing Polygon’s AggLayer technology to make Ronin’s growing L2 ecosystem feel more like a unified chain.
Specifically, AggLayer uses zero-knowledge proofs (ZKP) to create a unified scalable environment that allows seamless cross-chain transactions and atomic composability, providing users with a smooth user experience. The adoption of this protocol may be the next major development after the release of Ronin zkEVM.
Summarize
In my opinion, the launch of Ronin zkEVM by the Sky Mavis team is a bold and smart move.
Ronin is already the dominant gaming chain in the crypto economy, and this zkEVM development enables it to remain highly scalable as an L2 while also easily supporting a thriving ecosystem of custom gaming chains.
Game developers and players will have more choices here, and validator rewards will become more generous, incentivizing better security. Therefore, this news heralds exciting times for the Ronin community and the broader crypto gaming ecosystem. The zkEVM era is about to begin!
