ZK-Rollup for Hyperledger Fabric: Architecture and Performance Evaluation

TL;DR

This paper presents a Layer-2 ZK Rollup solution for Hyperledger Fabric that significantly improves transaction throughput and reduces latency while maintaining security, addressing scalability challenges in permissioned blockchains.

Contribution

It introduces an off-chain sequencer and batching mechanism using ZK proofs to enhance scalability and performance in Hyperledger Fabric.

Findings

Achieved 70-100 TPS throughput, a tenfold increase over baseline.

Reduced client latency from 4 seconds to 700-1000 milliseconds.

Maintained security guarantees of the permissioned blockchain.

Abstract

A big challenge posed in blockchain centric platforms is achieving scalability while also preserving user privacy. This report details the design, implementation and evaluation of a Layer-2 scaling solution for Hyperledger Fabric using Zero Knowledge Rollups (ZK Rollups). The proposed architecture introduces an off chain sequencer that accepts transactions immediately and sends them for batching into a Merkle tree based rollup, using ZK proofs to attest to the correctness and verifiability of the entire batch. The design aims to decouple transaction ingestion from actual on chain settlements to address Fabric scalability limitations and increase throughput under high load conditions. The baseline architecture in Hyperledger Fabric constrains transaction requests due to endorsement, ordering and validation phases, leading to a throughput of 5 to 7 TPS with an average latency of 4 seconds. Our Layer-2 solution achieves an ingestion throughput of 70 to 100 TPS, leading to an increase of nearly ten times due to the sequencer immediate acceptance of each transaction and reducing client perceived latency by nearly eighty percent to 700 to 1000 milliseconds. This work demonstrates that integrating ZK Rollups in Hyperledger Fabric enhances scalability while not compromising the security guarantees of a permissioned blockchain network.