In Brief:
- Polygon introduced a disruptive STARK-based, EVM-compatible rollup – Polygon Miden.
- Polygon’s ambitious launch is aimed to make Miden VM the leading ZK powerhouse.
- Polygon’s ambitious initiative committed over $1 billion from its treasury for the development of zero-technology.
Polygon introduced the newest member of the Polygon scaling solution suite – Polygon Miden, a breakthrough STARK-based, EVM-compatible rollup. On Tuesday, Polygon Miden launched its core component – Miden VM, the first-ever open-source STARK-based VM. The polygon’s ZK-based efforts are aimed to become the leading ZK powerhouse.
Polygon is focused on ZK (Zero-Knowledge) crypto technology for scaling blockchains. Zero-Knowledge technology allows one party to prove to another that they hold private information such as a password, without needing to reveal what the information is. STARK is one such method to algorithmically prove or verify such information.
The Polygon team tweeted that it was proud to launch Miden. The project is led by Bobbin Threadbare, former Facebook’s core ZK researcher.
Polygon’s ambitious initiative committed over $1 billion from its treasury for the development of zero-technology. Polygon Miden will be STARK-based ZK technology. ZK Rollups are a very promising solution but they have trouble processing arbitrary logic and transactions, including those of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).
Polygon Miden is introduced to overcome this issue, hence providing the core component – Miden VM. Miden VM not only supports arbitrary logic and transactions but also can automatically generate a STARK-based proof of execution for any program executed on the VM. Zk-STARK stands for zero-knowledge Scalable Transparent ARgument of Knowledge.
This proof can then be used by anyone to verify that a program was properly executed, without the need for re-executing the program or even knowing what the program was. Miden VM helps to build ZK Rollup that can execute any transaction and program, including those on the Ethereum blockchain.
ZK STARK can revolutionize complex decentralized finance or DeFi, including decentralized car insurance or healthcare products, as it requires identity verification. ZK-STARK and other similar schemes can redact obscure information on digitized assets such as driving licenses, or passport copies. This reduces their size for fast verification by blockchain users.
Consequently, the nodes can verify the authenticity of such documents without coming without interacting with the user’s actual personal data – thereby establishing trust for the DeFi product.
Polygon Miden is aggressively working on zk technology to become a leading ZK powerhouse.
Last month, ZkLink raised $8.5M in a funding round and is also in a race to become first the multi-chain DEX to enable one-click, cross-check transfers across EVM and non EVM compatible chains.
Vitalik Biterin, Co-founder of Ethereum, also showed his excitement for this launch saying – “This is amazing. Really excited to see Polygon taking full trustlessness this seriously. Looking forward to see the rollup-driven highly scalable future of Ethereum.”
