Plans for the new network were officially unveiled live today at TOKEN2049 in Dubai, where Telos is a title sponsor
April 19th, 2024 — The Telos Foundation today announced that it will work with Ponos
Technology, the leading Zero Knowledge Proof (ZKP) research and development firm, to begin
to develop an end-to-end optimized, hardware-accelerated Ethereum Layer 2 network featuring
SNARKtor, the Telos-developed decentralized recursive proof aggregator. The teams will take a
hardware-software co-design approach that will help unlock new possibilities in terms of
massive scalability, greater data protection and trustless interoperability for Ethereum users
globally.
Ponos Technology provides end-to-end optimized solutions for ZK proving, which is essentially
achieved by leveraging FPGA acceleration, thus maximizing business value streams through
cost-performance optimized computation by matching hardware-software co-designed modules
and dedicated execution environments. The team includes a unique blend of experienced
scientists and highly skilled industry experts that have accumulated deep technical knowledge
on all aspects of ZKPs.
“Zero Knowledge technology is going to become increasingly mainstream and can open the
door to increased efficiency and security across so many industries,” said Slobodan Lukovic,
CEO and co-founder, Ponos Technology. “Similarly to AI, steady enhancements in algorithms
coupled with advancements in underlying hardware infrastructures will enable commoditization
of ZKPs and result in the technology being widely adopted in the near future.”
Telos will also be working with several other new partners during the development cycle,
including:
- Digital M.O.B. – One of the strongest Ethereum developer teams in the world, having
worked on projects including MetaMask, MakerDAO and Gnosis, among others. - ATKA – A Paris-based end-to-end Web3 incubator that has helped incubate world class
projects such as Morpho and Mangrove, and whom Telos announced a strategic
partnership with in March 2024. - Cometh – An award-winning dev team led by ETH France President Jerome de Tychey,
who joined Telos as a technical EVM advisor also in March 2024.
Telos Executive Director John Lilic, who helped lead pioneering teams at ConsenSys and
Polygon in addition to maintaining his role as a Top 50 Web3 angel investor, will help coordinate
and support the transformation. He will work closely with Alberto Garoffolo, Head of ZK
technology at Telos and co-author of the SNARKtor whitepaper, and Jesse Schulman, CTO and
Head of Engineering at Telos.
“Fundamentally, Ethereum will need to take a hardware-software co-design approach in order to
realize zkEVM performance at tremendous scale,” said Lilic. “That’s the approach we’re taking
with Ponos Technology and our growing partner network as we build a hardware-accelerated
zkEVM L2. We believe that this formula, alongside the exciting work our team is doing with
recursive proofs via SNARKtor, is going to offer compelling services to the Ethereum community
and beyond.”
Telos was created in 2018 through a fair drop network launch that did not include an ICO nor
token sale. Over the past six years, the Telos Foundation has helped steward the development
of two primary networks – Telos EVM and Telos Zero – and will now also focus on building a
highly performant and succinctly provable L2 zkEVM.
Following TOKEN2049, additional details on the Telos L2 will continue to be announced in the
lead up to EthCC in July, for which Telos is a primary sponsor. Live in Brussels from EthCC, the
Telos team plans to broadcast its first-ever demo of SNARKtor to the world as a precursor to the
official launch of the Telos L2.
