Scaling Trust: Alex Gluchowski on Matter Labs, ZKsync, & the Future of Ethereum

Episode notes

In this episode of The Smart Economy Podcast, Dylan Grabowski speaks with Alex Gluchowski, co-founder and CEO of Matter Labs, the engineering team behind ZKsync and the ZK Stack powering Ethereum’s zero-knowledge ecosystem. Gluchowski shares his journey from growing up in post-Soviet Ukraine—where financial instability and institutional distrust were the norm—to discovering Bitcoin as a tool for freedom. He explains why zero-knowledge proofs felt “too good to be true,” how early cryptographic constraints slowed adoption, and how recent breakthroughs now make ZK the most scalable and secure path forward for blockchains. The conversation explores the growth of ZKsync, the introduction of the Elastic Network, and why Gluchowski believes all rollups will eventually migrate to ZK. He discusses the challenges of onboarding institutions, the rising demand for stablecoins and compliant privacy, and the pivotal role ZK infrastructure will play as real-world assets, enterprises, and global finance move on-chain.