Consensys and Mastercard Collaborate to Enhance Scalability and Privacy on Ethereum Mainnet

Consensys is the leading Ethereum software company, enabling developers, enterprises, and people worldwide to build next-generation applications, launch modern financial infrastructure, and access the decentralized web. Their product suite, composed of Infura, Quorum, Codefi, MetaMask, Truffle, Diligence and their NFT platform, serves millions of users, supports billions of blockchain-based queries for their clients, and has handled billions of dollars in digital assets. Ethereum is the largest programmable blockchain in the world, leading in business adoption, developer community, and DeFi activity. On this trusted, open source foundation, Consensys is building the digital economy of tomorrow.

The Ethereum network has seen a surge in usage, with over 177 million Ethereum addresses in existence and tens of thousands added each day. This high network usage, while signaling strong adoption, also points to a need for scalability and privacy-enhancing solutions. The challenge was to provide a solution that could handle the increasing demand for transactions on the Ethereum Mainnet and permissioned blockchains, while also ensuring privacy and confidentiality of transactions. The need for scalability was particularly pressing in areas such as decentralized finance (DeFi), non-fungible tokens (NFT), gaming, Web 3.0 and the metaverse, where the creativity of projects on Ethereum is exploding.

Consensys, in collaboration with Mastercard, launched Consensys Rollups, an innovative modular software solution for permissioned blockchain applications. This solution is designed to provide scalability and privacy capabilities that can be connected to any Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible blockchain. It can be used on the Ethereum Mainnet, or on private Consensys Quorum networks. Consensys Rollups leverage zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs to protect specific transaction elements, such as account balances, sender, recipient, and amount, to prevent this important transaction data from being shared publicly across the network. This significantly enhances the privacy and confidentiality of transactions. Solutions built with Consensys Rollups can currently achieve a throughput of up to 10,000 transactions per second (TPS) on a private chain.

• The implementation of Consensys Rollups has opened up new possibilities for blockchain use cases by increasing scalability and confidentiality for asset transfers. This includes Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), Decentralized Exchanges (DEXs), micropayments, and private transfer and taxes. For instance, CBDCs issuance on top of a Consensys Rollups powered Quorum network can provide scalability and privacy capabilities for digital currency transfers among central banks, commercial banks, and retail users. Similarly, DEXs built with Rollups will bring scalability to DeFi and NFTs, and more use cases on Ethereum that need faster settlement but the security guarantees of Ethereum. Furthermore, micropayment applications that require high throughput to properly function as large numbers of users interact with platforms and decentralized applications (dapps) will benefit from Rollups on mainnet. Finally, Consensys Rollups open a new pattern for confidentiality on the Ethereum Mainnet, or on Enterprise Ethereum (Quorum) powered networks, enabling use-cases that require auditability and transparency but also maintain user confidentiality.

• Consensys Rollups can currently achieve a throughput of up to 10,000 transactions per second (TPS) on a private chain.

• Only 300 TPS can be achieved on private chains and 15 on the Ethereum Mainnet without Consensys Rollups.

• Consensys Rollups is compatible with all tokens that follow the ERC20 standard.