The future of ZKsync’s hyperchain scaling

Scaling for the financial sector

The $2.4 billion TVL milestone is a significant moment for ZKsync. Matter Labs prioritizes the ZK Stack, Prividium, and Airbender to ensure the platform meets the performance requirements of global financial institutions. Prividium functions as a banking stack that integrates access control, transaction approval, and reporting into enterprise workflows. Gluchowski stated, "Sensitive financial data cannot be public without breaking competitiveness, confidentiality, and law." I believe this focus on institutional needs addresses the primary reason crypto adoption stalled previously. The 2026 roadmap shifts from technical foundations to the large-scale implementation of crypto technologies in real financial systems. This expansion aims to make cryptocurrencies an integral part of the global economy rather than a parallel financial infrastructure. In 2025, the team implemented the technical roadmap by launching the Atlas, Prividium, and Airbender components as a single system. These components were used in the first institutional deployments and demonstrated the capabilities of the Incorruptible Financial Infrastructure. This infrastructure relies on cryptography instead of the human factor for trust. The team held active consultations with banks, corporations, and governments throughout the year to address requirements for privacy, control, risk management, and interoperability.

Orchestrated ZK networks and hyperchains

The ZK Stack evolves from separate networks into orchestrated systems where native interaction between public and private ZK networks occurs without third-party bridges, which makes cross-chain functionality almost invisible to users while they access liquidity across the entire ecosystem. Hyperchains provide the foundation for this orchestration. These hyperchains function as sovereign, custom ZK-chains that run on top of Layer-1 or Layer-2 networks. Hyperchains use the ZK Stack to build modular, app-specific environments with unique tokenomics and transaction limits. They use a shared bridge called a hyperbridge to communicate. This hyperbridge is a smart contract on the main chain that verifies Merkle proofs for all transactions. Hyperchains operate as independent ZK-rollup chains that compute transactions separately from Layer-1. They can aggregate all the proofs and voluntarily agree to settle all the batches’ proofs in a single proof and then publish it to Layer-1. This architecture allows for infinite scalability and faster messaging between Layer-1, Layer-2, and Layer-3. Airbender functions as the fastest RISC-V zkVM in the world. It focuses on deeper auditing, formal verification, and an improved developer experience. This tool aims to make the zkVM a universal standard within Ethereum’s broader ZK strategy.

Competitive position and token utility

ZKsync competes in a crowded market where Arbitrum and Optimism lead in liquidity. Arbitrum holds approximately $18 billion in TVL, while Optimism holds $4 billion. ZKsync holds $2.4 billion following its recent milestone. I find the gap between ZKsync and Arbitrum to be a significant hurdle for the protocol. The ZK token utility is also changing. Gluchowski proposed a structure where the token links to network revenue through staking and fee-rebates. This includes using fees from interoperability tools and enterprise privacy solutions to reward stakers and buy back tokens. This shift changes the ZK token from a governance-only asset to one with direct economic value. In the DeFi space, SyncSwap processes approximately $50 million in daily volume. Velocore also attracts liquidity from yield farmers seeking high APYs on stablecoin pairs. The transition to usage-based models and membership economies is the direction for the next cycle.

Transaction costs and regulatory hurdles

Transaction costs on ZKsync remain much lower than on Ethereum. Bridging to the network requires a one-time Ethereum mainnet fee. You know that gas spikes on Ethereum make L2s attractive, but the bridging fee remains a fixed obstacle. A theft of $5 million occurred in April 2025 after attackers compromised the airdrop contract, which caused the price to drop by almost 20%. Will the regulatory frameworks in the US and Europe ever accommodate the privacy needs of ZK-proof applications?

The fee difference is clear. A simple ETH transfer on Ethereum at 30 gwei costs about $1.50 to $2.00, while the same transfer on ZKsync costs $0.05 to $0.10. A Uniswap swap on Ethereum can cost $10 to $30, whereas ZKsync keeps the cost under $1. The project also plans to deprecate ZKsync Lite in 2026 to focus on the ZK Stack and Prividium. This planned sunset provides a safe migration for the users who remain on the original system.