TL;DR:
- ZKsync set May 4 as the final shutdown date for Lite, when block production will stop and the network’s final state will be permanently frozen.
- According to L2BEAT data, approximately $33.9 million remains bridged on Lite, including $24.9 million in stablecoins and $8.4 million in ETH.
- The protocol will focus on the development of ZKsync Era and the ZK Stack ecosystem. A read-only API will remain available for at least one year after the Lite shutdown.
ZKsync announced that May 4 will be the official date to deprecate Lite, considered Ethereum’s first zero-knowledge rollup. The team seeks an “orderly and planned shutdown for a system that fulfilled its purpose.” On that day, block production will cease and the network’s final state will be permanently frozen, ensuring that balances cannot be altered after the shutdown.
The project was originally launched as ZKsync 1.0 in June 2020. It supported token transfers, atomic swaps, and NFT minting, but lacked smart contract functionality. Matter Labs, the company behind the project, halted its development in March 2023 following the launch of ZKsync Era, a zkEVM designed to execute smart contracts arbitrarily.
Toward the Consolidation of the ZK Stack Ecosystem
The team stressed that the deprecation will not affect other products of the project, including Era or the chains built with the ZK Stack framework. A read-only API will remain operational for at least one year after the shutdown to guarantee access to historical data, according to the team.
ZKsync Urges Users to Withdraw Their Assets
Users were urged to withdraw their assets before May 4 for convenience, although the team clarified that funds not withdrawn by that date can be claimed indefinitely. According to L2BEAT data, approximately $33.9 million remains bridged on the network at the time of the announcement, distributed among $24.9 million in stablecoins, $8.4 million in ETH and derivatives, $313,320 in BTC and derivatives, and $231,130 in other assets.
The shutdown of ZKsync Lite marks the formal end of the protocol’s first generation. The project now bets on more advanced systems and initiatives. Era, presented at the time as the “Holy Grail of Ethereum scaling,” allows developers to port existing applications without compromising security, aligning with the strategic direction Matter Labs has been charting since 2023.
