Matter Labs to Retire ZKsync Lite in 2026 as Focus Shifts to ZKsync Era and ZK Stack
Matter Labs plans to retire ZKsync Lite in 2026 as part of a transition to the newer ZKsync Era and the ZK Stack. The deprecation of Lite will be orderly and is not expected to affect other ZKsync systems. ZKsync Lite, launched in June 2020, was initially an early zero-knowledge payment rollup but lacked support for smart contracts, limiting its long-term usefulness after the emergence of general-purpose zkEVM designs.
In 2023, ZKsync Era was introduced with full EVM compatibility, leading to a decline in Lite's usage as developers consolidated liquidity and tooling around the newer stack; by December 2025, Lite had fewer than 200 daily operations. Despite this, Lite still holds approximately $50 million in assets bridged to Ethereum, which remain withdrawable through its Layer 1 contract. Withdrawals will continue to be available throughout the deprecation process.
The original ZKsync 1.0 was rebranded as ZKsync Lite in February 2023. A month later, the development team ceased active updates to Lite to focus efforts on developing Era and the broader ZK Stack. ZKsync Era is intended to be the foundational framework of Matter Labs' zkEVM ecosystem and has been described as an alpha version requiring an estimated two to three years of further engineering work.
Matter Labs will publish the timeline and instructions for the deprecation in the coming year, ensuring ongoing support for withdrawals to Ethereum during the transition. Notably, in September 2024, Matter Labs laid off 24 employees. CEO Alex Gluchowski attributed the layoffs to a significant increase in demand for ZK Chains, contextualizing the company’s strategic shifts.
