Has the L2 racing landscape changed after Vitalik Buterin endorsed zkSync?

Endorsement vs Reality: Data Speaks

In October, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin publicly supported zkSync, stating that its zero-knowledge proof solution “is underestimated.” Following this statement, the ZK token surged 120% within 24 hours, reaching $0.74, with a market value approaching $600 million—marking a new high since May. Behind this is the research of over 30 institutions (Citigroup, Mastercard) into zkSync's enterprise-level privacy solutions.

Technical Benchmarking: Who is Tougher?

Throughput | After the zkSync Atlas upgrade, it achieves 30,000 TPS, outperforming the slow confirmations of optimistic rollups. However, the Arbitrum ecosystem has already taken root ($16B TVL), and Base, riding on the coattails of Coinbase, also has $4.94B.

Security | ZK verifies transactions with mathematical proofs, inherently trustless; optimistic rollups rely on manual fraud detection, which has vulnerabilities. However, Vitalik recently proposed modifying Ethereum's modexp, which will increase ZK costs by 15-25% in gas—quite awkward.

Ecosystem | This is a shortcoming of zkSync. Arbitrum has over 250 protocols and a strong DeFi accumulation; zkSync is still relying on privacy narratives and institutional collaborations to fill the gap.

Investment Perspective: Who is Worth Getting On Board?

zkSync Card | New token mechanism directly burns coins, creating deflationary pressure, daily trading volume over $300 million. Endorsement by Vitalik + Atlas upgrade = narrative fully loaded, but ecological depth still lacking.

Arbitrum's Stability | The scale is there, and while the optimistic aggregation is slow, it has been market-validated. The latest connection to the BitcoinOS cross-chain bridge has formed an ecological moat.

The Confusion of Optimism | The concept of Superchain is good, but there is no TVL/trading volume data, and institutional funds may be on the sidelines.

Bottom Line

V God’s endorsement is recognition, not a guarantee. zkSync does have technical highlights, but whether it can surpass Arbitrum's network effects remains to be seen in actual execution. DeFi opts for Arbitrum for stability, while the privacy track looks towards zkSync; do not go all in on any one - L2 has just begun to heat up.