Matter Labs, the Team Behind Ethereum Layer 2 Scaling Solution zkSync, Confirms 921 Ether, $1.7 million worth of Bitcoin is currently trapped in one of its new smart contracts, GemstoneIDO.
However, the company claims that the funds are “safe” and that it has found an “elegant” solution to salvage the funds accumulated during the Gemholic token sale. Matter Labs said in its recent tweet that it had initially said funds would not be "trapped forever," and that it had found an "elegant solution" to "unfreeze" the GemstoneIDO contract and transfer funds out. Matter Labs determined that the issue stemmed from the .transfer() function in the GemstoneIDO smart contract, which is part of a project run by the GemholicECO ecosystem.
Matter Labs stated that this problem could have been avoided if they had deployed the contract on the testnet first.
“Unfortunately, these contracts were deployed on the Era mainnet without being tried on the testnet or on a local node, which immediately revealed the problem.”
The faulty feature comes from zkSync Era, a new rollup of zero-knowledge proofs for the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), which executes smart contracts much faster than on the base layer. However, the team emphasizes that zkSync Era is not EVM equivalent, meaning it is compatible with the EVM at the bytecode level. This means that some features work differently in the new environment.
"It was a deliberate design choice with specific advantages and tradeoffs," they said.
In justifying its design choices, Matter Labs said that zkSync Era can process certain transaction types 10 to 1,000 times cheaper than other EVM rollups. Nonetheless, Matter Labs holds itself responsible for the error and assures members of the zkSync ecosystem that they will continue to work tirelessly to address similar issues. "With that comes great responsibility and the inevitable occasional friction, and today was one of those. When things go wrong, our teams will remain vigilant and relentless in addressing them." However, several members of the CryptoCurrency subreddit expressed their disappointment with the matter:
“Another example of why a chain should not rush to launch its mainnet. Always remember these folks, EVM Compatible =/= EVM Equivalent. “I am all for zero-knowledge technology becoming more and more important in the crypto space. However, these chains also have to take into account the fact that people’s funds are at stake,” said another. The transaction failure for the GemstoneIDO contract can be seen on the zkSync browser page, which also shows 921 Ether stored in its smart contract. Matter Labs launched zkSync Era on mainnet last week, promising decentralized exchanges Uniswap and SushiSwap to go live within days. However, this has not happened yet, and projects including Argent, Celer Network, and MetaMask are now live on the network.
