Today, Polygon announced that it will launch its testnet to test a new Ethereum scaling system. Polygon bought Hermez last year for $250million. On its testnet, DeFi protocols AAVE and Uniswap will be launched.
As the race to be the dominant Ethereum Layer 2 solution continues, Polygon launches a public testnet for its Ethereum scaling solution Hermez.
Polygon purchased the Ethereum Layer 2 scaling solution Hermez from Ethereum late last year for 250 million. The brand-new network will be available for the first time.
Hermez, also known as a ZkEVM, is a Layer 2 scaling solution that offers security and customization benefits.
“It was widely believed zkEVM would take several years to ship. This makes it an even more significant milestone not just for Polygon, but for the entire Web3 industry,” stated Mihailo Bjelic, Polygon Co-founder.
ZkEVMs provide all the Layer 2 benefits, but developers can create Zero Knowledge (ZK), applications with the industry-standard coding language Solidity. This means that developers and applications get all the security benefits and scaling benefits ZK offers without needing to learn supplementary coding languages.
DeFi protocols like AAVE, Uniswap and others will be available on the testnet upon launch. Hermez can be tested with these protocols and users. This allows the AAVE and Uniswap teams to test for any bugs before the mainnet launches.
Ultimately, Polygon ZkEVM is the next step on Ethereum’s journey. We are working towards giving our users all the benefits of a functioning zkEVM — scalability and no compromise. There is still much work to be done before we reach our full potential.
David Schwartz, Polygon Hermez co-founder, said that there are many things we need to improve upon and welcome feedback.
Polygon announced that all applications, tools and user wallets built using its Polygon proof-of-stake network will be compatible with Hermez.
This announcement comes just before zkSync launches its mainnet on October 28.
