- Polygon Labs has acqui-hired longtime collaborator Toposware.
- Each corporations have been growing a brand new Kind 1 Prover.
- Polygon says the Prover will make it straightforward for EVM networks to turn out to be ZK-based chains.
Polygon Labs introduced one other acquisition right this moment, including the tech agency Toposware’s 11-person crew, mental property, and tech stack to its ranks.
In all, Polygon Labs has splashed $1 billion in zero-knowledge expertise investments.
Zero-knowledge expertise is a sort of cryptographic proof system that may affirm the validity of blockchain transactions with out revealing all of their particulars. It’s one of many methods to attain scalability for layer 2 blockchains ― an space of curiosity for Polygon Labs and its household of networks.
The Toposware deal marks the third zero-knowledge technology-based crew assimilated into Polygon Labs ― the corporate beforehand acquired Hermez and Mir in 2021.
Zero-knowledge expertise competes towards one other piece of expertise known as optimistic rollups, however distinguished blockchain figures equivalent to Ethereum Vitalik Buterin favour ZK as the higher answer as a result of it’s sooner and cheaper.
“ZK is easier, not only from a development perspective but for users and user experience too,” a Polygon spokesperson advised DL Information.
Zero-knowledge scaling
The Toposware acquisition isn’t only a guess on zero-knowledge cryptography. It’s additionally a guess on scaling and permitting all blockchains to work together with each other.
That’s as a result of an internet-sized blockchain ecosystem would possible require a number of chains, introducing one other downside, fragmentation ― the place data is siloed in numerous networks, and it isn’t trivial emigrate knowledge throughout these chains.
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Polygon Labs says it’s working in direction of interoperability ― what the business calls networks that may work together with each other ― for ZK-based chains.
A part of this effort is to make it doable for any blockchain utilizing the Ethereum Digital Machine to turn out to be a layer 2 blockchain that makes use of zero-knowledge expertise.
ZK-based expertise isn’t simply appropriate with EVM networks, that are fashionable amongst blockchain builders.
EVM blockchains are just like Ethereum in that they run on the Ethereum Digital Machine and use the identical good contract logic.
For an EVM chain to turn out to be a ZK-based community and hook up with Ethereum, it requires a Kind 1 Prover ― which convinces a blockchain {that a} transaction is legitimate.
Toposware and Polygon Labs have been growing such a Prover.
Osato Avan-Nomayo is our Nigeria-based DeFi correspondent. He covers DeFi and tech. To share suggestions or details about tales, please contact him at osato@dlnews.com.