ZKsync to Retire Its Legacy ’Lite’ Rollup in 2026—What It Means for Ethereum Scaling
ZKsync drops the old model. The network just confirmed its legacy 'Lite' rollup gets the sunset treatment in 2026, marking a decisive pivot toward its more advanced, full-featured ZK Stack architecture.
The End of an Era for 'Lite' Scaling
Think of the 'Lite' version as a training-wheel solution—it got the job done but with compromises. It handled transactions off-chain and posted compressed data back to Ethereum, a solid first step. But the tech evolved. The newer ZK Stack promises tighter security, faster finality, and a modular foundation for building custom chains. Retiring 'Lite' isn't a setback; it's a forced upgrade, clearing the deck for what the team believes is the superior product.
Why This Sunset Matters Now
The timeline gives projects and users a clear, one-year runway to migrate. No sudden breaks. The announcement serves as the official starting gun for that transition. It signals confidence that the ecosystem is ready to move on from the foundational tech to the more ambitious vision. For a space obsessed with the 'next big thing,' maintaining legacy systems is a tax—on developer attention, security audits, and community focus. This cuts that dead weight.
The Bigger Picture for Rollups
This move reflects a brutal truth in layer-2 evolution: first-generation solutions have a shelf life. As zero-knowledge proof technology matures at a breakneck pace, what was groundbreaking two years ago can look clunky today. ZKsync's decision is a bet on its own roadmap, essentially telling the market that future growth and scalability hinge entirely on its new stack. It's a standard tech playbook—phase out the old to fuel adoption of the new—though executed with the particular finality that blockchain's immutable ledgers seem to encourage.
The clock starts now. By 2026, the 'Lite' in ZKsync's story becomes a legacy footnote, another piece of scaffolding removed once the bigger building stands. Just another day in crypto, where today's cutting-edge infrastructure is tomorrow's digital museum piece—funded entirely by speculative gas fees, of course.
What is happening and when
Launched in June 2020, zkSync Lite aimed to deliver cheap, fast token transfers, atomic swaps, and NFT minting on Ethereum. But, it lacked support for smart contracts, a key limitation as the use of decentralized finance (DeFi) and decentralized applications (dApps) grew.
Now, after five years in operation and with usage largely dormant, the project behind zkSync has decided to phase Lite out next year. While the exact date and detailed migration guidance haven’t been shared yet, the team said they will publish them in the coming months.
Why this matters and why now
The decision signals a shift in focus. Since March 2023, development efforts have centered on zkSync Era, a full-featured zkEVM that supports arbitrary smart contracts, rather than the older Lite rollup.
Recently, two major ecosystem updates happened. Firstly, the ZK token governance and utility upgrade, expanding ZK’s role in protocol decisions and future sequencing markets. And secondly, the Atlas upgrade before that which introduced unified liquidity across ZK Stack chains—an architecture Lite cannot integrate with.
The migration has slowly shifted to the developers and users, making Lite have less than 200 daily operations. Despite its low activity, around $50 million in user funds remain bridged to zkSync Lite, per data from L2BEAT.
The team assures users that funds remain SAFE and withdrawals to Ethereum’s mainnet (L1) will continue working during and after the deprecation process. The retirement also comes after a challenging period for zkSync.
Earlier in 2025, the network shut down its liquidity‑rewards program ZKsync Ignite, citing bearish market conditions and a strategic pivot toward building a broader modular ecosystem called ZK Stack.
What this means for users and the broader ecosystem
For users still holding assets on zkSync Lite, this announcement serves as a clear signal, they should plan to withdraw or migrate their funds before or during the deprecation process.
While zkSync promises support for withdrawals, liquidity or ecosystem support for Lite, such as third‑party bridges or trading pairs, may dry up over time. For zkSync itself, this move allows the team to concentrate on Era, ZK Stack, and future modular ZK-based chains.
By clearing legacy infrastructure, developers can allocate resources toward systems with smart‑contract capability, interoperability, and long-term growth potential.
As the blockchain community watches this shift, zkSync Lite’s retirement marks both an end and a beginning. It closes a chapter on Ethereum’s early zero‑knowledge experiments, and clears the path for next‑generation Layer‑2 innovations.
Also Read: ZKsync and LNET Team Up on Private RBF Systems in LATAM
