zkSync Era batches users' transactions and submits them to Ethereum together with a zero-knowledge proof, paying a share of the transaction fees to Ethereum validators (expense).

zkSync Era is an L2 smart contract platform for decentralized applications on Ethereum. zkSync Era was founded by Matter Labs and launched in 2023.

Matter Labs team owns and governs the protocol. Matter Labs' investors include a16z, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Blockchain Capital, etc.

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Blockchains (L2)

zkSync Era

# zkSync Era Block time Methodology

## 1. Overview

Block time measures the average time interval between consecutive blocks on the zkSync Era blockchain, expressed in milliseconds. This metric indicates the speed and consistency of block production on the Layer 2 network. The calculation determines the time elapsed between each consecutive pair of blocks, then computes daily averages to provide a time-series view of network block production performance.

## 2. Data sources

The calculation relies on the following data sources:
- **zkSync Era blockchain data**: Block header information from zkSync Era nodes containing block timestamps and sequential block numbers
- **Incremental processing metadata**: Table modification timestamps used to optimize data processing boundaries

## 3. Step-by-step calculation

### Component A: Block data extraction
- **Purpose**: Extracts raw block timing data from zkSync Era blockchain
- **Logic**: Retrieves block timestamps and sequential block numbers from zkSync Era block headers. Excludes the genesis block (block number 0) as it contains an invalid timestamp set to the Unix epoch beginning, which would skew block time calculations
- **Key fields**: `block_timestamp` contains the exact timestamp when each block was produced, `block_number` provides sequential ordering of blocks

### Component B: Consecutive block pairing
- **Purpose**: Creates pairs of consecutive blocks to enable time difference calculations
- **Logic**: Uses a lag window function ordered by block number to pair each block with its immediately preceding block. This creates consecutive block pairs where each row contains both the current block's timestamp and the previous block's timestamp
- **Key fields**: `block_timestamp` is the current block's timestamp, `previous_timestamp` is the preceding block's timestamp obtained through the lag function

### Component C: Block time interval calculation
- **Purpose**: Calculates the time elapsed between consecutive blocks
- **Logic**: Computes the millisecond difference between each block's timestamp and its predecessor's timestamp using timestamp difference functions. Excludes the first block in the sequence since it has no predecessor for comparison
- **Key fields**: `block_time` represents the milliseconds elapsed between consecutive blocks, `timestamp` is truncated to day boundary for aggregation grouping

### Final aggregation
- **Combining components**: Individual block time intervals are grouped by day and averaged to produce daily block time metrics
- **Currency conversion**: Not applicable - block time is measured in milliseconds
- **Time aggregation**: Block timestamps are truncated to daily boundaries, and all block intervals within each day are averaged using arithmetic mean
- **Final calculation**: The daily average block time is calculated by summing all individual block time intervals within each day and dividing by the count of intervals, providing the mean block production time in milliseconds for each calendar day

The methodology includes incremental processing logic that only recalculates recent time periods when new data is available, improving processing efficiency while maintaining data accuracy.

*This methodology was automatically generated by Token Terminal's methodology analyzer.*

avg(block_timestamp - previous_block_timestamp)

zkSync EraZK

Block time

Block time

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