When fully funded, this would be a $ 627.5 million investment in zero-knowledge technology at today’s MATIC prices.

Ethereum Scaling Solution Polygon has announced it will issue up to 250 million MATIC tokens ($ 627.5 million) on a deal with zero-knowledge crypto startup Mir.

Zero-knowledge algorithms enable external validators to check transactions or encrypted documents without revealing the sensitive information hidden underneath. It is useful for complex decentralized financial applications such as decentralized ridesharing or health insurance applications where nodes need to verify people’s personal information.

I specialize in developing two subcategories of zero knowledge evidence: PLONK and Halo. Both represent advances over previous SNARK and STARK cryptographic techniques and enable evidence to be created in seconds.

While PLONK still requires a trustworthy setup for authentication, Halo algorithms can do the job remotely. Speed ​​is the design factor that goes into zero-knowledge evidence. Complex information transmitted over blockchains, such as processed photo IDs, can grow large and affect the usability of transactions.

“Polygon plans to focus on ZK cryptocurrency as the ultimate game for blockchain scaling,” said Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder of Polygon.

“We made the strategic decision to explore and promote all scaling methods and technologies that make sense at this stage. We believe this is the way to establish Polygon as a leading force and contributor in the ZK space and attract the first billion users of Ethereum. ”

The acquisition of Mir is part of a larger $ 1 billion commitment to developing Polygon zero knowledge technologies.