What is Protokit?
Protokit is a framework for building privacy enabled application chains (a.k.a. zk-roll-apps / zk-rollups). Enabling developers to build zero-knowledge privacy preserving applications with a minimal learning curve.
The framework itself is powered by O1JS (opens in a new tab), an SDK for building zkApps. Thanks to O1JS all applications built with Protokit are compatible with the Mina blockchain by design - and can use the Mina L1 for settlement. Therefore tapping into the shared security of the Layer-1 consensus.
Furthermore all the code written with Protokit is provable, meaning that transaction execution and block production results in zk-proofs verifiable by the L1 (or anyone).
What is a rollup?
Rollups are a form of an L2 scaling solution (opens in a new tab), originating from popular networks such as Ethereum. L2 solutions aim to address the scalability issues of L1 networks by moving transactions off-chain, while still maintaining the security guarantees of the L1 network.
Optimistic vs zk-rollups
There are two main types of rollups, optimistic and zk rollups. Optimistic rollups are the most popular form of rollups, and are used by networks such as Optimism (opens in a new tab). Optimistic rollups rely on fraud proofs to ensure the validity of transactions. Fraud proofs are a mechanism that allows users to challenge invalid transactions.
Zk-rollups on the other hand, rely on zero-knowledge proofs to ensure the validity of transactions. Zero-knowledge proofs are a cryptographic mechanism that allows users to prove the validity of a transaction without revealing any information about the transaction itself.
Applications built with Protokit are zk-rollups, thanks to the underlying O1JS SDK.
What is an application chain?
Application chain is an application specific form of a rollup, unlike a general-purpose rollup like zkSync (opens in a new tab) or Scroll (opens in a new tab). Application specific rollups allow developers to optimize their rollup implementation to suit their application's needs, providing a better user experience (e.g. faster block times) and potentially lower fees than general purpose rollups.
Applications on MINA
Smart contracts
Mina blockchain's (opens in a new tab) L1 is designed with scalability in mind by moving the smart contract transaction execution off-chain. Smart contracts (opens in a new tab) are built as zero-knowledge circuits using O1JS, and are executed on the client side (e.g. in the browser). When a block is produced on the Mina blockchain, the block producer does not have to execute the smart-contract code, but only has to verify the validity of the zero-knowledge proof of the smart contract execution.
This approach allows for lower hardware requirements for node operators, and theoretically a higher transaction throughput / scalability. This approach does introduce some novel challenges for developers, where clients transacting in parallel are not aware of each other - thus running into potential race condition scenarios.
Rollups
Rollups alleviate the potential race condition scenarios by moving the execution from the client side to the server/sequencer side. Protokit offers a hybrid execution model, where code can run both on and off chain, thanks to recursive zero-knowledge proofs. This approach allows us to retain the capabilities of smart contracts, while extending them with the capabilities of sequential execution.
Mina's smart contracts offer certain built-in primitives for implementing rollups and addressing the inherent race conditions, such as Actions & Reducers (opens in a new tab). However the effort to implement and operate a zk-rollup using plain O1JS reducers grows exponentially with the complexity of the application. Protokit aims to abstract away the complexity of building a zk-rollup, and allow developers to focus on building their application.
Thanks to Protokit's modular architecture, you'll be soon™ able to use actions and the underlying sequence state as a mempool for applications built with Protokit.
Question is, where do we draw the line between a smart contract and a rollup? Protokit is to rollups, the same as O1JS is to smart contracts - an SDK.