Polyhedra - a cross-chain project based on ZK technology

Forward the Original Title ‘Polyhedra，基于ZK技术的跨链巨头’

The foundation of an industry’s development is to create more value for society, so blockchain is always moving forward around two major themes: one is the improvement of infrastructure, and the other is large-scale application. In terms of infrastructure, the public chain is the most basic, and it is also likened to the operating system of Web2. After the 2017 bull market, the industry realized the limitations of ETH performance and started a new public chain construction journey to increase TPS and reduce GAS. EOS was the star at the time. The PPT stated that it could exceed one million TPS, but it eventually fell. . Fortunately, during the bull market in 2021, excellent public chains such as Solana, BNB Chain, Avalanche, and Fantom emerged.

When it comes to 2024, the vigorous development of ecological projects has given rise to different demands for public chains. The improvement of modular infrastructure has made the so-called “one Dapp, one public chain” low-cost, simple, and convenient (see my discussion on modularization for details). This will inevitably lead to a large-scale increase in the number of public chains. According to incomplete statistics, there are at least several hundred public chains in existence. In this bull market, the quantity growth is at least 10 times. If asked to use a simple math to illustrate, when the number of public chains is 10, there are 45 combinations of pairs; When the number of public chains expands 10 times to 100, there are 4950 combinations of pairs, which is expanded by 110 times.

So in this bull market, cross-chain demand is also increasing exponentially. And the demand for cross-chain is not only the previous asset transfer, but also includes messaging, data sharing, multi-chain deployment, liquidity sharing, etc. Polyhedra Network aims to build the next generation of Web3 interoperability and scalability infrastructure, with its core relying on advanced Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP) technology. By providing trustworthy minimal and efficient interoperable solutions.

Polyhedra Network enables asset transfer, messaging, and data sharing across multiple Web2 and Web3 systems. So far, Polyhedra has developed and deployed several next-generation zkSNARK protocols and multiple innovative ZKP-based products, including a zkBridge that supports cross-chain asset and data interoperability, covering more than 25 blockchain networks.

Technical features and highlights

Polyhedra Network’s engineering team has leveraged its expertise in cryptography to pioneer a series of foundational algorithms and zero-knowledge protocols such as Libra, Virgo, deVirgo, Pianist, Marlin, Gemini and Orion, which have set new standards in the industry, which has provided the fastest prover time. Also, it significantly reduced proof size, and minimized on-chain verification costs. These foundational technologies are at the heart of Polyhedra’s efforts to improve the scalability, security, and interoperability of blockchain systems, enabling solutions to some of the most urgent challenges in digital infrastructure.

core data

1. The number of cross-chain transfers is as high as 20 million.
2. 40 million proofs verified.
3. Connected to more than 25 public chains.
4. Having the fastest zero-knowledge proof (ZK) algorithm.
5. Having the fastest consensus proof.
6. Inventor of zkBridge.
7. Inventor of zero-knowledge algorithms: Invented 7 algorithms in total.
8. Participating in OKX activities: 141m, get 500K Polyhedra network tokens.
9. Participating in the Binance Web3 wallet event: get 556K, 1 million Polyhedra network tokens.
10. X platform followers have reached 964.3K.
11. Discord platform followers have reached 545K.

products and services

zkBridge

As the core product of Polyhedra Network, zkBridge is designed as a cross-chain bridge that is trust-minimized. zkBridge uses zkSNARKs to enable the prover to effectively have the receiving chain confirmation that some state transition occurred on the sender chain. It consists of a block header relay network and an update contract. Through its modular design, zkBridge implements several useful functions, including message passing, token transfer, and other computational logic that runs on state changes on different chains.

zkBridge guarantees strong security without adding additional trust assumptions. With concise proofs, it not only guarantees correctness but also significantly reduces on-chain verification costs. It accelerates the speed of workload orders of magnitude faster than existing solutions. It provides a trust-minimized and efficient cross-chain infrastructure for layer 1 and layer 2 interoperability, solving the practical challenges of connecting different blockchain networks.

zkBridge uses a zero-knowledge proof structure to verify the validity of the consensus between two blockchains. Since the release of the Alpha version of the main network, zkBridge has facilitated more than 20 million cross-chain transactions, covering more than 25 layer 1 and layer 2 blockchain networks.

zkLightClient

zkLightClient is a cross-chain protocol developed by the Polyhedra Network team for LayerZero. It provides a secure and efficient cross-chain infrastructure for layer1 and layer2 interoperability. This technology is fully integrated with LayerZero’s messaging protocol, allowing application developers to develop cross-chain protocols using zero-knowledge proof technology through simple integrated configuration. zkLightClient has securely transmitted more than 4.5 million messages. LayerZero now uses zkBridge as the default decentralized verification network (DVN) for many paths.

Cross-chain messaging with btc chain

Cross-chain messaging with the Bitcoin chain is a new need in recent times. The vigorous development of the BTC ecosystem in 2023 and the emergence of BTC layer 2 have led to a surge in cross-chain demand for BTC. However, Bitcoin is a relatively special public chain, which requires a new solution to achieve cross-chain message transmission. zkBridge launches Bitcoin messaging protocol designed to significantly increase Bitcoin interoperability. This move aims to enable the Bitcoin network to interact with other layer 1 and layer 2.

When Bitcoin is used as the sender chain, it is fully compatible with the current zkBridge framework. zkBridge can directly verify the Bitcoin consensus on the update contract on the receiving chain (such as ETH), as well as verify every transaction on Bitcoin by verifying Merkle proofs. This compatibility ensures that both consensus proofs and transaction Merkle proofs on Bitcoin are fully protected via zkBridge.

If the Bitcoin chain is the receiving chain, since Bitcoin does not have smart contracts, it is incompatible with the zkBridge framework. The method adopted is to use the POS mechanism to allow verifiers to pledge the native tokens of the sending chain. If the sender chain is Ethereum, verification requires staking ETH. Authorized to write data on the Bitcoin network, using the Multi-Party Computation (MPC) protocol to ensure consensus is reached on the correct message being sent.

Messaging with the Bitcoin chain already supports Ordinals, BRC-20, and Atomics. Projects using Polyhedra include Atomics Market, Babylon, Bitmap, B2Network, Eigenlayer, etc.

Financing situation

Polyhedra has experienced a total of 4 rounds of financing, including:

The first round of financing was in February 2023, and it received US$10 million in investment jointly led by Binance Lab and Polychain.

In April 2023, it received 15 million Pre-A round of financing led by Polychain.

In January 2024, it received Series A financing from Okx Ventures. The amount of financing was not disclosed.

In March 2024, Polyhedra Network’s valuation reached US$1 billion in the latest round of private financing, attracting investors including Polychain, Binance Labs, OKX Ventures, Animoca Brands, Hashkey and UOB Ventures.

Token system

Polyhedra’s token name is ZK, and the total amount is 1 billion. According to the public data on OK:

32% are ecological incentives

28% are early stage investors

15% for community market and airdrops

15% for the foundation

10% are core contributors

Specific release rules have not yet been announced

However, zk conducted an airdrop for users before the launch, and if there are less than 20 users, they can choose the tokens after the new mainnet goes online and receive an additional 10% compensation. ERC20 tokens can also receive an additional 10% compensation.

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