A public testnet of ConsenSys’ zkEVM solution ‘Linea’ is now live, having processed over 1.5 million transactions since its private beta.

Ethereum infrastructure company ConsenSys released a public testnet of its zero-knowledge (zk) proof scaling solution – the third zkEVM-related release in the last five days. 

In a March 28 announcement, ConsenSys said its zkEVM solution named “Linea” had made its way to the public testnet.

The firm released a private beta of its zk-rollup in December, saying the fully compatible Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) technology was the product of years of research. Since the release of the private testnet, ConsenSys’ zkEVM has processed more than 1.5 million transactions.

Linea will come with native integrations of ConsenSys’ popular software wallet MetaMask and its developer toolkit Truffle.

With native integrations like @MetaMask and @Trufflesuite, @LineaBuild combines zero-knowledge proofs with EVM equivalence, offering flexibility & scalability for developers without needing expertise in zk technology.

Build effortlessly! ⚡

— ConsenSys (@ConsenSys) March 28, 2023

The public testnet will enable developers to build scalable decentralized applications, or migrate existing ones without having to change their existing code base. The default testnet option available on the MetaMask extension will also facilitate an easier onboarding process.

The era of zkEVMs was ushered in last week when Matter Labs launched its zkSync Era solution on the mainnet, followed by Polygon’s zkEVM mainnet beta on Monday.

These consecutive zkEVM launches, coupled with Arbitrum’s widely anticipated token airdrop last week, sent Layer 2 gas usage skyrocketing over the last week.

The launch of zkSync’s Era, Arbitrum’s token, and Polygon’s zkEVM have sent daily L2 gas usage to nearly 18% of the total gas consumed on Ethereum. pic.twitter.com/QKuWuhb99e

— Sam (@swmartin19) March 28, 2023

“Once the technology for enabling zkEVMs becomes more widely tested, used, and understood, it is likely zkEVMs will also have to compete with optimistic rollups and other L2 scalability solutions for user adoption,” stated Galaxy in a recent research report.

In a March 28 episode of Unchained, Stanford cryptography professor Dan Boneh and a16z General Partner Ali Yahya explained why zk-proofs are critical to Ethereum’s future.