zkSync & 921 ETH In Limbo ($1.7M)

Disclaimer: It was unfrozen with the help of the zkSync team. What does this say about decentralization and what 'could be fixed' in the future?

Like Leo in Inception except with permission-less tech… on April 6th there was Ether trapped in limbo…

So what happened?

Well it started with a project called Gemholic and their 921 ETH raised via IDO funds which got stuck in the smart contract. This was not zkSync’s fault but it brings up a bigger issue of compatibility in an ever changing and permission-less world. Thw core nuts and bolts is the zkSync incompatibility with the transfer function. zkSync has specifically stated to not do it this way. But permission-less means just that, they are not responsible for what others put up incorrectly chuck in to the void.

The technicals might bore you so for the sake of time and our brief writer/reader relationship, I will summarize:

GemholicECO encountered an issue with their token contract on zkSync Era due to the usage of the .transfer() function. This happened because the contracts were not tested on testnet or local node, which would have caught the problem. zkSync Era uses the LLVM compiler to compile code from EVM languages like Solidity, Vyper, and Yul, enabling developers to enjoy faster transaction speeds and lower gas fees. However, there are trade-offs as zkSync Era is not EVM-equivalent, and codes written for Ethereum Mainnet or other EVMs might not function the same way on zkSync.

Goal3 learned from these issues early on and implemented better practices to ensure security and reliability, such as extensive unit testing, closed dev-net peer reviews, public testnet feedback, and partnering with tier-1 auditors. They also paid $10,000 to the community for the first public testnet and plan to launch bug bounties once their treasury is set up.

Despite being in Alpha, zkSync Era has a thriving ecosystem and has seen a significant spike in activity. The zkSync team takes responsibility for addressing issues and has found an elegant solution to unfreeze the GemholicECO contract with minimal changes to the gas metering protocol.

This will be something that is tracked long term so bookmark this peace for updates as the happen.

Community Reactions

If you think some of this might be wrong, put a comment below this post or wait for Substack notes and we can talk there ; )