Why Solana?

Apart from ideological and strategic reasons, there are a couple key practical considerations behind our decision to build ZX as a Solana rollup.

1. Operational Costs

Solana’s low gas fees, compared to its competitors, significantly reduces the operational costs of our rollup infrastructure, making it the ideal network for an orderbook style DEX handling millions of transactions weekly. ZX requires batching and sending all rollup transactions to the L1 for data availability, a process that would be cost-prohibitive on other networks. Additionally, the rent paid for ephemeral accounts storing the data blobs for ZX blocks is fully reclaimable, ensuring that overall costs are kept low and tied directly to Solana’s affordable transaction fees.

2. Fast Block Times

The faster the block times, the quicker the rollup blocks can become finalized on the L1 (DA) and by extension, the finalization of a new logical rollup state. This means users are sooner able to access the latest state of the rollup, which is critical for higher quality UX. Also faster finality times (not block times)leads to faster forced transactions if the sequencer is censoring. For comparison, Solana block times are 400ms; 37.5 times faster than Ethereum’s 15 seconds.

3. Access to Capital

Solana boasts a thriving DeFi ecosystem, ranking fourth in total value locked (TVL) and second in DEX volumes across all chains. The ability for ZX to seamlessly access this liquidity and offer users an intuitive experience within the Solana ecosystem presents a distinct advantage.