This isn’t the first time Matter Labs has been embroiled in a spat with a competitor. In August 2023, the Polygon team made headlines by alleging that Matter Labs had copied its Plonky-2 software system without proper attribution. Leaders of other teams, such as Starkware, also spoke out at the time, expressing their disappointment in Matter Labs. (Gluchowski denied the copying allegations, but said the company “could have done better” by more clearly attributing other teams’ open-source code.) Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal appeared to reference the debacle when weighing in on the previous controversy, saying in a statement last week that “zkSync has repeatedly acted against the spirit of Web3, despite consistently demonstrating the same values. We believe that if we do not publicly address this behavior, it will likely continue and get worse.” Matter Labs CEO Alex Gluchowski initially dismissed the complaint, adding that the purpose of the trademark application was to protect users and that the company would ultimately share the trademark with a consortium of ecosystem stakeholders that doesn’t yet exist. But three days later, Matter Labs opted to back away from its trademark efforts entirely.
