New zkEVM Kakarot Prepares for Testnet Launch After Vitalik Buterin Backs its Pre-seed Round

Vitalik Buterin, along with Nicolas Bacca of Ledger, StarkWare, and others, were amongst the investors in the round. The funding amount remains undisclosed.

Elias Tazartes, CEO & co-founder, commented: “This is a hacker house success story. It all started when all of Kakarot’s founding and advisory team spent a week together in Lisbon in October, living together, hardly sleeping, and coding for every waking moment. It’s exciting now that investors of the caliber of Vitalik, StarkWare which created Cairo, and others are recognizing the great promise of this project, and investing.”

Kakarot zkEVM is an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) implemented in Cairo, a Turing-complete language which enables provable computation using polynomials and the ZK-STARK proof system. By utilizing STARK proofs for both transactions and blocks, Kakarot ensures transparency and security. Leveraging validity proofs, Kakarot inherits security from Ethereum L1 while enabling lower costs.

Traditionally, developing for Starknet necessitated acquiring proficiency in its native language, Cairo. However, Kakarot changes the game by enabling developers to deploy code written in Solidity or any EVM compatible language onto Starknet, just as they would on Ethereum or Polygon.

In phase 1 of its project, Kakarot functions as an EVM within Starknet L2. Developers can effortlessly deploy their Solidity contracts directly on Starknet using their preferred toolchains, such as Foundry or Hardhat. Meanwhile, end-users can enjoy their familiar experience, including compatibility with Metamask.

Kakarot aims to facilitate interoperability with native Starknet protocols and foster composability between various protocols, encompassing both DeFi and GameFi.

Moving forward to phase 2 of its roadmap, Kakarot will merge with the Madara sequencer to form a unified stack, paving the way for L3 zkEVMs, which will offer provability and allow for off-chain computation while verifying on-chain, thereby reducing gas costs and enhancing overall performance.

Read more: