Matter Labs’ transfer to trademark the commonly-used acronym was met with condemnation from the web3 neighborhood.
Matter Labs, the staff behind the ZkSync Ethereum scaling options, has ceased efforts to trademark the time period “ZK.”
On June 2, Matter Labs tweeted that it had determined to drop all trademark functions for the time period ZK — a preferred acronym referring to zero-knowledge cryptography.
The transfer got here after Matter Labs discovered itself on the middle of controversy after in search of to trademark the time period in 9 completely different jurisdictions.
“Thanks to everybody who reached out… providing concepts, help, and suggestions,” Matter Labs tweeted on X. “Because of these conversations, we determined to drop all trademark functions.”
Matter Labs’ efforts to trademark ZK attracted fierce criticism from rival groups working with zero-knowledge cryptography, together with Polygon, Starkware, and Polyhedra. They argued that leveraging the authorized system to say the favored and longstanding acronym violated the ethos of web3.
“We condemn this habits within the strongest attainable phrases, as a clear try by an organization to say possession over one thing that doesn’t belong to it,” an open letter stated. “ZK ought to stay a public good. It shouldn’t be a trademark of an organization: it ought to relatively be accessible to all.”
The tasks additionally argued that Matter Labs was in search of to leverage the trademark to make sure its forthcoming token will commerce below the ticker ZK — regardless of Polyhedra’s token already buying and selling below that ticker.
Matter Labs responded by claiming it wished to discover a means to make sure the time period “ZK” functioned as a public good whereas sustaining the trademark.
“It might be unimaginable to agree on a gaggle of individuals perceived as credibly impartial by practically everybody,” the corporate stated in its June 2 tweet. “What may have labored for Ethereum wouldn’t essentially work for your entire world.”
The timing of the backlash comes as rumors are swirling that ZkSync will airdrop its long-awaited to customers in mid-June.
Hypothesis that the challenge would airdrop a token to early adopters ramped up when Matter Labs launched ZkSync Period, its zk-EVM community, in March 2023. The deployment came about inside days of Arbitrum, the biggest Layer 2 community by TVL, finishing its ten-figure airdrop.
ZkSync Period is now the ninth-largest Layer 2 community by whole worth locked (TVL), in accordance with L2beat. Its DeFi ecosystem additionally boasts a TVL of $145 million, in accordance with knowledge from DefiLlama.
