Interview with Scroll Co-founder Haichen: The Mainnet Launch is a New Starting Point, Focusing on Real-World Applications

Scroll, as an open-source Layer 2 solution led by Asian entrepreneurs, has always attracted community attention. After two years of intensive development and one year of testing, Scroll produced its genesis block on October 10, 2023, and officially launched on the Mainnet on October 17.

As of October 27, a data platform shows that the total locked value on the Scroll chain is ( TVL ), which has exceeded 19.3 million USD. Data from a blockchain explorer indicates that the number of Scroll Mainnet wallet addresses has surpassed 147,000, with a total of over 860,000 verified transactions. From October 20 to 26, the average daily transaction count was nearly 80,000, with the highest daily transaction volume being 101,375 on October 22.

Recently, Scroll co-hosted the ETH Hong Kong event with an organization at Cyberport in Hong Kong, marking the first large-scale event organized by the Ethereum community in Hong Kong. During the conference, Scroll co-founder Haichen Shen was interviewed, and below is a summary of the interview.

Haichen is introduced as one of the three co-founders of Scroll, mainly responsible for the engineering team. He previously worked on AI compiler-related tasks at a large tech company. Later, by participating in Ethereum community activities, he learned about zero-knowledge proof technology and believes this field has great potential for practical product and system development, ultimately achieving Ethereum scalability to handle more transactions and reduce user fees.

Regarding the original intention of holding the ETH Hong Kong conference, Haichen stated that they realized Hong Kong emphasizes business, and the Ethereum community is relatively small. Through this event, Hong Kong students and Ethereum community developers from the Asia-Pacific region can get involved, learn about the latest developments in Ethereum, and re-expand the Ethereum community to Hong Kong and the Asia-Pacific region. This is significant for the expansion of the entire developer ecosystem in Hong Kong and the Asia-Pacific region.

This hackathon has nearly 100 projects participating, mainly focused on providing infrastructure services for Ethereum or Layer 2, as well as enhancing user experience. Ultimately, 16 projects will be selected for the final round of presentations, and winners will be awarded.

When discussing the significance of the launch of Scroll Mainnet, Haichen stated that this is an important milestone and a new starting point. After two and a half years, they have completed the development of infrastructure components such as zkEVM circuits and block generation sequencers. Through long-term operation of the testnet, they ensured that all functions are complete. In the last few months, the focus has been on security optimization, inviting external organizations for independent audits.

After the Mainnet is launched, users can bridge assets from Ethereum to Scroll and use various applications. The Scroll team will subsequently launch more features to further enhance security, reduce user fees, and provide developers with more functionalities to support innovative application development.

Regarding the development situation after one week of launch, Haichen stated that it is overall in line with expectations. Approximately $15 million has entered the Scroll chain, and some DeFi applications have already generated transactions. Currently, Scroll ranks 18th in Layer 2 TVL. They are surprised that the growth rate of contract deployments exceeds TVL, indicating that more active developers are developing on Scroll, and more innovative applications may emerge in the future.

Regarding the reasons for choosing the zkEVM technical route, Haichen explained that zk is an excellent solution for Ethereum scaling, providing users with higher security. Compared to Optimistic Rollup, zk Rollup actively submits proofs rather than passively waiting for challenges, thus offering faster and stronger security guarantees. In addition, EVM equivalence is also important, providing a better experience for users and developers. Developers do not need to install new plugins and can directly use Ethereum development tools, reducing the risk of errors.

Haichen emphasized that Scroll's uniqueness in technology lies in its high compatibility with the Ethereum EVM. They write zero-knowledge proof circuits in a way that is closest to the EVM, with each EVM instruction having a corresponding zk circuit component to prove correct execution. Currently, the number of precompiled contracts supported by Scroll is the highest in zk rollups, with 6 supported. This provides developers with a more complete user experience, especially in aspects such as elliptic curve operations.

In terms of ecological development, Scroll will initially focus on supporting infrastructure services such as RPC, indexing, cross-chain bridges, and oracles. Following that, there will be a wave of DeFi applications deployed. The long-term goal is to build an open and neutral platform that treats all developers equally. Scroll will pay special attention to real-world application projects, such as stablecoin payments and AA wallets, as well as public goods projects that benefit ecological development. In the future, there are also plans to incentivize developers to deploy contracts on Scroll through methods like NFTs.

Looking back on the entrepreneurial journey, Haichen stated that it was relatively smooth overall, with early financing providing assurance for long-term development. The main challenges came from the technical side, particularly encountering many unexpected issues during the construction of the zkEVM. Through internal discussions and collaboration with the open-source community (, such as the Ethereum Foundation's PSE group ), technical route issues were resolved and developed together. Multiple code reviews improved reliability, and after several rounds of restructuring and optimization, the expected level was finally achieved.

Regarding the competition and development of the Layer 2 track, Haichen believes that the entire ecosystem is still in its infancy. This year, more attention has shifted towards zk Rollup solutions. He pointed out that zk Rollup still needs to address several issues, such as increasing the level of decentralization, reducing dependence on a single project, and enhancing overall security. He believes that Layer 2 still has significant room for growth, including the development of new applications to achieve faster information interaction between Layer 1 and Layer 2. Haichen emphasized that this market is not a zero-sum game, but rather a blue ocean that can continue to expand.