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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zkSync Era

# zkSync Era Expenses Methodology

## 1. Overview

The zkSync Era expenses metric measures the total operational costs incurred by the zkSync Era protocol on a daily basis. This metric combines two expense categories: cost of revenue (primarily L1 settlement costs) and token incentives. The calculation tracks the protocol's L1 settlement expenses by monitoring gas fees paid for transactions to zkSync Era's validator timelock contracts on Ethereum, while token incentives are currently set to zero as the protocol has no active incentive programs.

## 2. Data sources

- **Ethereum transaction records**: Transaction data from the Ethereum mainnet, including gas usage, gas prices, blob gas usage, and blob gas prices for transactions sent to zkSync Era validator timelock contracts
- **zkSync Era transaction records**: Transaction data from the zkSync Era network used to establish the time structure template for token incentives calculations
- **End-of-day token price feeds**: Daily ETH/USD exchange rates used for currency conversion of settlement costs
- **Token metadata**: ETH token information including decimal precision for proper currency conversion handling

## 3. Step-by-step calculation

### Component A: Cost of revenue (L1 settlement costs)

- **Purpose**: Tracks the operational costs zkSync Era pays to settle transactions on Ethereum L1
- **Logic**: The system identifies L1 settlement transactions by filtering Ethereum transactions sent to four specific zkSync Era validator timelock contract addresses: `0x3db52ce065f728011ac6732222270b3f2360d919`, `0xa0425d71cb1d6fb80e65a5361a04096e0672de03`, `0xa8cb082a5a689e0d594d7da1e2d72a3d63adc1bd`, and `0x5d8ba173dc6c3c90c8f7c04c9288bef5fdbad06e`. For each qualifying transaction, the system calculates total gas costs by multiplying `gas_used` by `effective_gas_price` and adding any blob gas costs calculated as `blob_gas_used` multiplied by `blob_gas_price`. These costs are converted from wei to ETH by dividing by 10^18, then aggregated by day and converted to USD using end-of-day exchange rates
- **Key fields**: `block_timestamp` for daily aggregation, `to_address` for filtering validator timelock transactions, `gas_used` and `effective_gas_price` for regular gas costs, `blob_gas_used` and `blob_gas_price` for EIP-4844 blob costs, `l1_settlement_amount` as the final ETH-denominated cost

### Component B: Token incentives

- **Purpose**: Accounts for any token-based incentive programs operated by zkSync Era
- **Logic**: The system uses the time structure from zkSync Era fees data to establish daily records, then sets all `token_incentives` values to 0. This approach maintains consistent schema structure while reflecting that zkSync Era currently operates without active token incentive programs
- **Key fields**: `timestamp` and `timestamp_grain` inherited from fees data structure, `token_incentives` hardcoded to 0

### Final aggregation

- **Combining components**: The two expense components are combined using a union operation, creating a single expenses value for each day that includes both L1 settlement costs and token incentives
- **Currency conversion**: L1 settlement costs are converted from ETH to USD using end-of-day exchange rates, while token incentives remain at 0
- **Time aggregation**: All data is aggregated to daily boundaries using timestamp truncation to day level
- **Final calculation**: The total daily expenses equal the sum of USD-denominated L1 settlement costs plus token incentives (currently 0). The system applies a zero-filling strategy for any missing data points and includes chain availability filtering to ensure data quality

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

Total project operating and incentive expenses.

zkSync EraZK

Expenses

Expenses

Competitive landscape

Chain breakdown