BNB Chain has announced the launch of zero-knowledge proof scaling technology..

Binance's Layer 1 BNB chain has announced the launch of its own zero-knowledge (ZK) proof scaling technology, dubbed zkBNB.

As Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin highlighted in his 'Endgame' article, zero-knowledge proofs are one of the viable long-term solutions for decentralized blockchain scalability. It is a new scaling and privacy technology that uses mathematical proofs to allow the verification of specific information without revealing the specifics.

BNB Chain is one of the most widely used Layer 1 blockchains, with over $5.4 billion in total value locked (TVL), and currently ranks third among all chains, according to DeFiLlama.

The goal of zkBNB is to maintain security at the base layer while utilizing ZK SNARKs for faster transaction per second (TPS), finality, lower transaction costs, and "scalability the likes of which has not been seen before in the industry," according to BNB Chain's release article.

Zero-knowledge proofs are not a new concept. In fact, zero-knowledge proofs have been around since 1985, more than 30 years.

However, the use of ZK proofs in cryptocurrencies is still in its early stages. ZK SNARKs were first implemented by Zcash, a bitcoin fork, and have recently gained traction due to their use of elliptic curves for proofs with high-security guarantees and viability for long-term scalability.

Long delays for transactions to process and finalize are one of the issues raised by BNB. According to the company, zkBNB will significantly reduce transaction queues, resulting in better-functioning applications and a better user experience.

The zkBNB testnet went live on September 2, and the mainnet is expected to launch before the end of 2022.