Taiko (TAIKO)

A decentralized, Ethereum-equivalent ZK-Rollup.

Basics

• Based in:
• Started in / Announced on: Q1 2022
• Testnet release: 28-12-2022, launched its sixth testnet called Katla in January 2024.
• Mainnet release: "early 2024" is projected (9-3-2023). Taiko had planned to launch its mainnet by the first quarter of this year. When asked (2-3-2024) if that plan is intact, Lam said: "We definitely need to upgrade our Katla testnet to enable support for EIP-4844 and perform one more cycle of stress test and security audit for the mainnet. The current outlook for completion of that is before the end of Q2." Went live on 27-5-2024.

History

• From The Block (8-6-2023):

"Wang and Finestone previously worked together at Loopring Foundation, a trading and payment protocol built on zk-rollup technology. Wang was its founder and CEO from July 2017 until November 2021, while Finestone spent three years with the project as its head of business."

Audits & Exploits

• Bug bounty program can be found [insert here].

Governance

• Claims to be decentralized straight away, but later also mentiones upgradability, so it is still a bit unclear (21-12-2022):

"Taiko aims to go live with a fully decentralized (and permissionless) proposer and prover set. The protocol will not enshrine or allowlist any parties; anyone will be able to perform those duties. Further, Taiko plans to have a minimal protocol-defined coordination scheme for proposers/provers. The current plan is for it to be leaderless. Certain measures like smart contract upgradeability will remain in place until things are battle-tested. This is guided by a security-minded approach: without proxy-based upgradability, users’ assets can face significant bug risks. Controlled upgradability is one of the levers that will be handed over to the DAO at some point."

Technology

• Whitepaper or docs can be found here.
• Code can be viewed here. Claims to be fully open source (2-12-2022).
• Is an Eth maxi (21-12-2022): "Emulating Ethereum for Taiko means everything aligns towards Ethereum: the ZK-EVM, other Ethereum base layer architecture, philosophical considerations, community, and ~vibes~."
• Consensus mechanism:
• Algorithm:
• Virtual Machine:
• Development language used:

Transaction Details

• Capacity (TPS):
• Latency:

How it works

• Building (3-2024) an Ethereum equivalent (type 1) zkEVM. Taiko is further designing a ‘Based Contestable Rollup‘ which is a rollup architecture featuring based sequencing and a contestation mechanism. Based sequencing is a decentralized and permissionless way of sequencing L2 transactions. The process of ordering transactions, known as sequencing, takes place on Ethereum itself. In a blog post, Taiko Labs said this process, dubbed “base sequencing".
• From their blog (10-10-2022):

"Taiko aims to be a type-1 ZK-EVM, which prioritizes perfect EVM/Ethereum-equivalence over ZK-proof generation speed. Taiko consists of three main parts: the ZK-EVM circuits (for proof generation), the L2 rollup node (for managing the rollup chain), and the protocol on L1 (for connecting these two parts together for rollup protocol verification).

Blocks in the Taiko L2 blockchain consist of collections of transactions that are executed sequentially. New blocks can be appended to the chain to update its state, which can be calculated by following the protocol rules for the execution of the transactions.

Block submission is split into two parts:

1. Block proposal: A block is proposed, with the block data published on Ethereum, and the block appended to the proposed blocks list in the TaikoL1 contract. The protocol ensures the block is immutable at this point, meaning the block execution is deterministic, and so anyone can calculate the post-execution chain state. We refer to a block and all enclosed transactions at such point as finalized. A distinguishable feature in a proposed block on L1 is that there may be invalid transactions that will be skipped over by Taiko L2 nodes. This feature allows for fault-tolerance while multiple blocks are proposed simultaneously.
2. Block verification: Because all proposed blocks are deterministic, blocks can be proven in parallel, since all intermediate states between blocks are known. Once a proof is verified for the block and its correctly-linked parent block is on-chain finalized, we mark the block as on-chain finalized.

A fundamental requirement of the protocol is that all data that is necessary to reconstruct the current state, and thus to create and append new blocks, is publicly available on Ethereum. Further, provers can generate proofs for a block using only public data on Ethereum. It is these facts, relying on Ethereum public data and giving all would-be participants a fair playing field, that makes Taiko’s L2 decentralized."

Upgrades

• Implemented multiple Zero-Knowledge (ZK) proofs powered by RISC Zero and Succinct Labs (11-11-2024).

Roadmap

• Can be found here. Updated version here (23-7-2024).

Pros and Cons

Taiko's sequencing is more decentralized than L2s that use a centralized sequencer, but this also means it has been spending up to $100,000 a day on blob space (9-6-2024). The team was able to optimize L1 gas costs down 30% (23-7-2024).

Team, Funding and Partners

Team

• Full team can be found [here]. Around 40 people (2-3-2024).
• Built by Taiko Labs
• Daniel Wang; co-founder
• From The Block (8-6-2023):

“We are going to quickly convert the organization into a non-profit one. Ideally we’ll operate very similarly to the Ethereum Foundation,” Wang said.

Funding

• Espresso Systems; part of their $28 Series B (21-3-2024).
• Announced a $15M Series A round (2-3-2024):

"Lightspeed Faction, Hashed, Generative Ventures and Token Bay Capital co-led the funding round, Taiko said Saturday. Other investors in the round included Wintermute Ventures, Flow Traders, Amber Group, OKX Ventures and GSR. Taiko also plans to set up an ecosystem investment fund with its investors, the amount for which is yet to be finalized, Lam added. In December, Taiko announced an allocation of about $30 million for its second round of the grants program."

• Raised $22 million across two seed rounds (8-6-2023):

"The first was a $10 million seed raise led by Sequoia China that closed in the third quarter of 2022, and the second was a recent $12 million pre-Series A round led by Generative Ventures, co-founder Daniel Wang said in an interview.

Other investors in the two rounds included IOSG Ventures, GSR and GGV Capital, and angel investors such as POAP founder Patricio Worthalter, Tim Beiko of the Ethereum Foundation and Anthony Sassano."

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