- Polygon has accused zkSync’s developer, Matter Labs, of copying significant portions of the Plonky2 library without proper attribution and making misleading claims about the original work.
- This incident has raised serious concerns about the respect for open-source ethos, affecting the trust within the crypto community and sparking a controversy in the blockchain space.
Accusation of Plagiarism by Polygon Zero
Polygon Zero, the zero-knowledge scaling division of Polygon, has publicly accused Matter Labs of plagiarizing a substantial part of the source code from its Plonky2 library. The allegedly plagiarized code was identified in zkSync, a competing layer-2 scaling solution for Ethereum. Matter Labs, the creator of the zkSync ecosystem, has denied these allegations.
Polygon Zero expressed their disappointment through a tweet:
Crypto runs on the open source ethos. When projects don’t follow it, the ecosystem suffers.
We were disappointed to see that @zksync copied our code without attribution and made misleading claims about the original work, so we wrote this post.
https://t.co/8VnoYVWgI8— Polygon Zero 💜 (@0xPolygonZero) August 3, 2023
Details of the Accusation
According to Polygon Zero, Matter Labs’ newly launched proving system, Boojum, incorporates numerous copied elements from critical components of its recursive SNARK Plonky2. Recursive SNARK allows one party to prove a statement’s truth to another without revealing additional information.
Polygon Zero’s claims extend to the absence of original copyrights or clear attribution and the striking similarity between Boojum and Plonky2’s library. The similarities include strategies to boost soundness and custom gates for recursive verification.
Matter Labs’ Marketing Claims and Response
Matter Labs has marketed Boojum as 10 times faster than Plonky2, a claim that Polygon Zero challenges, especially since they believe the field arithmetic code is directly copied from Plonky2.
In comments to Cointelegraph, Matter Labs expressed disappointment at Polygon’s leadership for “spreading untrue claims.” A spokesperson clarified that Boojum leverages only 5% from Plonky2, and this is prominently attributed in their module.
Previous Instances of Plagiarism in the Crypto Community
This situation adds to previous plagiarism accusations within the crypto community. In March, members of the Shiba Inu community reported identical chain IDs between Shibarium’s layer-2 beta testnet and Rinia testnet, further claiming that Shibarium’s alpha testnet copied Polygon’s Mumbai testnet.
