Focused on building rollup technology, the encryption project has completed its seed round financing.

A cryptocurrency project dedicated to developing rollup technology has recently completed a $7.4 million seed round financing. This round of financing involved several well-known investment institutions, bringing the company's valuation to "eight figures." It is reported that the project is building a software development kit aimed at helping developers create secure and interoperable zero-knowledge rollups.

This project is an open and interconnected rollup ecosystem, dedicated to enabling all developers to deploy seamlessly interoperable and scalable rollups that can run on all blockchains. The SDK developed will become the simplest framework for creating secure and interoperable sovereign zk-rollups.

Challenges of Scalability Faced by Blockchain Applications

Currently, there are three main ways to scale blockchain applications: L1 public chains specifically designed for applications, optimistic rollups, and zk-rollups.

Although L1 public chains for applications are easy to design and deploy, they have obvious flaws. Each L1 must recruit its own validators and persuade them to stake enough funds to secure the blockchain. Due to the high cost of funds, this approach is only suitable for a few applications with ample resources.

Although optimistic rollups lower the development threshold for application chains, they also have issues. They rely on fraud proofs to prevent misconduct, which results in a long "finality delay" for transactions. Bridging to optimistic rollups thus becomes slow and expensive, leaving developers with difficult choices.

In comparison, zk-rollups are considered a better scaling solution. They have the advantages of optimistic rollups while avoiding long finality delays. However, building zk-rollups remains a daunting task that requires the long-term commitment of specialized encryption engineers.

The Innovation of the Project

The SDK of this project is dedicated to providing comprehensive support for zk-rollups. It will offer various essential components required for blockchain, such as p2p networks, databases, and RPC nodes, allowing developers to focus on the business logic of their own blockchain. In addition, it will also provide a series of default modules that run efficiently in a zero-knowledge environment.

Most importantly, this SDK will be the first rollup framework that eliminates the complex details of zero-knowledge. Developers do not need to be cryptography experts; they only need to write applications in common programming languages, and the SDK will automatically compile them into an efficient zk virtual machine.

The main features of this SDK include:

1. Achieve seamless interoperability between rollups, significantly reducing costs through innovative bridging technology.

2. Provide secure and scalable rollup solutions, leveraging zero-knowledge proofs to achieve scalability without sacrificing end-user verifiability.

3. Supports running on any blockchain, achieving cross-chain compatibility through "sovereign" rollup design.

Project Development Roadmap

The project is currently under active development, and the roadmap is divided into three phases:

1. Research Phase: Designing core modules and APIs, developing research prototypes. Expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2023.

2. Initial Deployment: Deploy basic infrastructure such as p2p network, RPC nodes, core APIs, etc.

3. System Improvement: Code optimization, testing, and auditing will be conducted, and the first use case will be developed. It is expected that the SDK will be launched on the mainnet after completion.

The project aims to lower the technical barriers of zero-knowledge technology, allowing blockchain to support billions of users. They promise that the SDK will remain completely free and open-source, and that each technical component will be built to the highest standards to achieve true decentralization and scalability.