Chainway Labs, the blockchain infrastructure firm behind Citrea, a project focusing on bringing zero-knowledge (ZK) rollups, has secured $2.7 million in seed funding, with Galaxy Ventures, the venture arm of Galaxy Digital, leading the round.
The funding will support the development and market launch of Citrea. Citrea aims to leverage zero-knowledge (ZK) technology to enhance Bitcoin’s blockspace, enabling the creation of various applications directly on the Bitcoin network.
The round saw participation from investors including Delphi Ventures, Eric Wall, Anurag Arjun, BatuX, Igor Barinov, and James Parillo, among others.
Citrea has unveiled a rollup solution fueled by zero-knowledge technology to tackle Bitcoin’s limitations in managing increased transactions and accommodating various applications without altering its consensus rules.
This approach utilizes Bitcoin not only as a cryptocurrency but also as a foundational layer for the security and finalization of transactions.
ZK-rollups have become closely associated with Ethereum, particularly through layer-2 solutions like Polygon and zkSync. They aim to enhance efficiency and cost-effectiveness by consolidating transactions on layer 2 and employing a cryptographic technique known as ZK-proofs to verify them on the underlying blockchain without revealing specific transaction details.
In the Bitcoin ecosystem, layer 2 solutions like the Lightning Network serve similar purposes, focusing on facilitating payments. Additionally, they are scaling initiatives such as ZKSats and Rollux, aiming to provide alternatives to Citrea.
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