Sandeep Nailwal, Polygon’s co-founder, remarked that “Polygon plans to focus on ZK cryptography as the end game for blockchain scaling.”
A scalability solution for Ethereum Polygon has announced that it will commit up to 250 million MATIC tokens ($627.5 million) to a partnership with Mir, a zero-knowledge cryptography business.
Polygon’s Plan
External validators can verify encrypted transactions or documents using zero-knowledge methods without revealing the sensitive information buried beneath. It’s beneficial for decentralized finance applications that require nodes to validate the personal data of blockchain participants without risking privacy leaks, such as decentralized ride-sharing apps or decentralized health insurance.
Mir specializes in PLONK and Halo, two subcategories of zero-knowledge proofs. Both are improvements on existing SNARK and STARK cryptography systems, allowing for proof generation in seconds.
While PLONK still requires a trustworthy configuration for validation, Halo algorithms can do so without a central server. In zero-knowledge proofs, speed is a key design consideration. Complex data to be sent via blockchains, such as redacted photo IDs, might take up a lot of space, limiting the transaction’s usefulness.
Sandeep Nailwal, Polygon’s co-founder, claimed, “Polygon aims to focus on ZK cryptography as the end game for blockchain scaling.”
“We have made a strategic decision to explore and encourage all meaningful scaling approaches and technologies at this stage. We believe this is the way to establish Polygon as the leading force and contributor in the ZK field and onboard the first billion users to Ethereum.”
Polygon’s acquisition of Mir is part of a larger $1 billion commitment to zero-knowledge technology development.
