Polygon Strengthens its ZK Capabilities With $400 Million Acquisition of Mir

Ethereum layer 2 scaling solution Polygon has announced the acquisition of zero-knowledge (ZK) technology developer Mir for $400 million. As per reports, the platform conducted the purchase with 250 million MATIC tokens for $1.60. The acquisition was announced at the backdrop of Polygon’s “zk day” virtual event. Since the transaction, MATIC’s price has risen by more than 50%.

The New Acquisition

According to the official blog post, Mir’s team will be joining Polygon to leverage the technology and also assist in the development of its new project. Dubbed ‘Polygon Zero,’ this new initiative is described as a highly scalable, Ethereum-compatible ZK rollup.

Reportedly, the Polygon Zero team is growing at a very fast pace and has onboarded individuals with some of the most prolific backgrounds and skill-sets. The project is currently under development, and its implementation is already underway.

Polygons Zero’s end goal is to drive Ethereum adoption by bringing in substantial scaling improvements without abandoning security as it joins the list of other initiatives such as Polygon PoS, Polygon Hermez, Polygon Miden, Polygon SDK, Polygon Nightfall, and Polygon Avail.

Besides, Mir has been engaged in recursive ZK proofs for almost two years. In fact, the Ethereum scaling startup also became the first in the space to implement recursive proofs based on PLONK and Halo last year.

Going forward, it plans to work on “sub-second recursive proofs.” Notably, Plonky2 has the ability to generate recursive proofs in an impressive 170 milliseconds on a computer system, and Polygon’s co-founder Mihailo Bjelic believes it is practical to use on Ethereum, with “45kb proofs in size-optimized mode.” Moreover, its unique features are expected to pave the way for blockchain networks’ horizontal scaling.

Zero-knowledge proofs are cryptography algorithms that enable data verification, such as blockchain transactions, without disclosing its details or contents.

Polygon’s $1 billion ZK Strategic Fund

Polygon has been focusing on scaling Zero-Knowledge cryptography for quite some time and earlier announced committing $1 billion to the effort. Some of the steps towards strengthening its ZK capabilities include acquiring prominent ZK projects and teams, designing and developing ZK-based solutions, hiring talent in the field, collaborating with relevant teams and projects, adopting ZK solutions, research funding, among others.

According to its Co-Founder Sandeep Nailwal, the latest addition of Mir will enable the platform to gain access to the “world’s fastest and most efficient” ZK scaling technology.