Alice Liu: Welcome Brecht, thanks so much for joining me.

Brecht Devos: Thanks for having me, Alice. It's great to be here.

Alice: Let's kick things off with a bit about your journey. How did you first get involved in the Web3 space and eventually the ZK world?

Brecht: Sure. It started back in 2017. I'd heard about Bitcoin but wasn't particularly drawn to it until I came across Ethereum. I got into smart contracts and, soon after, started experimenting with ZK tech. Back then, there weren’t a lot of tools - only things like libsnark - so I dove in, learning by doing.

Eventually, I got involved in zkRollups towards the end of 2018. We were working on making zkRollup technology more accessible, and by 2019, we launched a zkRollup at Loopring. That was a big milestone. After that, I worked on Loopring’s scaling efforts and did some cool partnerships, like the one with GameStop. Then I shifted gears towards more generalized zkRollups, which led to working with the Ethereum Foundation on the ZK-VM project. Eventually, I joined forces with Daniel from Rubrik and others to start Taiko. That's where we are now.

Alice: You’ve certainly been on quite a journey - from smart contracts to working at Loopring, and now co-founding Taiko. When you first joined Taiko, what was your vision, and how has that evolved, especially now with your focus on Gwyneth?

Brecht: When we started Taiko, the goal was to build a rollup that closely resembled Ethereum. We wanted it to be as equivalent to Ethereum as possible, but at the time, that was seen as a challenge because many of Ethereum's features are costly in the ZK context. As ZK advancements progressed, it became clear that achieving full equivalence was feasible, so we doubled down on that.

Another major goal was decentralization. We noticed that many rollups weren’t doing enough in this regard - they were centralized, especially around the sequencer. We wanted to build something that went beyond that, emphasizing a decentralized approach from day one. Over time, this philosophy drove a lot of the decisions we made at Taiko.

Alice: That makes sense. The decentralized approach really sets Taiko apart. Could you explain how Taiko and Gwyneth differ from each other? For developers looking at both options, what situations would make one better suited than the other?

Brecht: Absolutely. Taiko is what you could call a traditional rollup, more in line with the standard models we’ve seen. It has its own smart contracts on L1, where blocks are proposed and proven after some delay. This works well for scenarios where block finality time isn’t critical. Proving delays are acceptable because they're only relevant for withdrawals or certain interactions.

Gwyneth, on the other hand, aims for more seamless composability. We took a different approach - instead of having asynchronous bridging between L1 and L2, we designed for synchronous calls across L1 and L2. This means developers can execute calls from L1 to L2 without waiting, which makes bridging between layers much more straightforward. Essentially, Gwyneth is trying to minimize the amount of extra infrastructure needed to work across chains.

Alice: That sounds powerful, especially the synchronous composability aspect. With Gwyneth's real-time proving approach, are there specific trade-offs compared to more traditional rollup models?

Brecht: There are some, definitely. Real-time proving means that we need fast proof generation - ideally under the L1 block time of 12 seconds, though 4 seconds is our target. Right now, we can’t rely solely on ZK proofs for this, given current proving speeds. To get around that, we're combining several approaches - TEEs, multisig ABS proofs, and, in the future, ZK proofs as they become feasible.

The trade-off is complexity, both in developing these proofs and managing the interplay between them. But it also adds significant redundancy. Even if one proving mechanism is compromised, others still ensure security. This layered approach gives us flexibility while we wait for ZK tech to catch up in terms of speed.

Alice: That makes a lot of sense. It’s like a safety net for the entire system, combining multiple types of proof. You mentioned working towards the Ethereum endgame. In your opinion, what does the “Ethereum endgame” look like for you and for Taiko?

Brecht: The Ethereum endgame, for me, is all about modularity and scalability without compromising decentralization. I think the ecosystem is slowly evolving towards a scenario where L2 rollups aren't complex, isolated systems but rather extensions of Ethereum itself. We should be able to reduce the complexity of rollup smart contracts significantly by moving more functionality into Ethereum’s native protocol - for example, having a ZK-EVM precompile directly in the Ethereum protocol to verify rollups.

Real-time ZK proving will be a core part of that. Once ZK proving is fast and cost-effective, we can transition towards using it comprehensively, while still relying on layered redundancy like TEEs to safeguard security. My hope is that by simplifying the architecture and leveraging Ethereum’s infrastructure, we can create a seamless ecosystem where developers deploy applications as easily on L2 as they would on L1, without worrying about fragmentation or user experience differences.

Alice: That's an ambitious and exciting vision. To wrap up, do you have any announcements or upcoming milestones you’d like to share?

Brecht: Definitely! On the Taiko side, we’re gearing up to enable ZK proofs soon, hopefully within the next month. We’re also working on pre-confirmations to improve user experience, aiming for the end of the year. For Gwyneth, we’re actively developing cross-chain call and building infrastructure, and our target is to launch by 2025. Busy times ahead, but we're very excited about the future.

Alice: That’s fantastic. Thanks so much for joining today, Brecht. It was great to hear about everything Taiko and Gwyneth are working on, and I'm sure everyone is as excited as I am to see it unfold.

Brecht: Thanks, Alice. It was a pleasure.To stay updated with everything happening at Taiko and Gwyneth, follow @Brechtpd, @taikoxyz and @gwyneth_taiko on X.