ZEROBASE, a real-time zero-knowledge (ZK) prover network developed by Salus, has raised $5 million in funding to build a privacy-preserving compute network tailored for ZK use cases. The funding round saw participation from prominent investors, including Binance Labs, Lightspeed Faction, Dao5, Matrix Partners, IDG, and Symbolic Capital, among others.
With the demand for Web3 services projected to require nearly 90 billion ZK proofs by 2030, and a market capacity of 83,000 transactions per second, the development of efficient ZK technology is crucial. According to Crypto.com, the market for generating ZK proofs could reach $10 billion by the end of the decade. ZEROBASE aims to meet this growing need with its high-speed, privacy-centric prover network.
The Importance of ZK Technology in Blockchain
Zero-knowledge technology is integral to blockchain for two main reasons: privacy and scalability. It allows one party to verify the authenticity of information without revealing the underlying data, making it ideal for safeguarding sensitive details. Additionally, ZK technology improves scalability by offloading complex computations from the blockchain while maintaining the integrity of on-chain verification. A prover network like ZEROBASE plays a crucial role by generating numerous ZK proofs in quick succession, ensuring efficient off-chain processing.
Innovating the ZK Ecosystem
ZEROBASE positions itself as a cutting-edge ZK prover network that prioritizes both speed and privacy. According to Mirror Tang, CEO of ZEROBASE, “The ZK ecosystem is evolving rapidly, driven by the growing demand for privacy, scalability, and decentralized applications. However, challenges in speed, cost, and centralization persist. ZEROBASE directly addresses these issues, providing a seamless experience for ecosystems, applications, and users.”
The network offers several key advantages:
- Speed: ZEROBASE generates proofs in under 400 milliseconds, enabling large-scale ZK use cases at a fraction of the cost compared to other solutions.
- Privacy: ZEROBASE is the only prover network that guarantees confidentiality by using Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) for secure proof computation and tamper-proof data.
- Decentralization: With a distributed compute architecture, ZEROBASE eliminates single points of failure, ensuring resilience and scalability across global nodes, with consensus times under one second.
From institutional applications requiring high levels of security to AI systems running zkML sequences and high-throughput financial platforms, ZEROBASE aims to offer the fastest and most secure ZK proving solution available.
Future Growth and Expansion
ZEROBASE is poised for rapid growth, with plans to enhance its network through proprietary algorithms that improve the speed of proof generation. It also aims to decentralize its node network further and extend its services to Layer 1 (L1) and Layer 2 (L2) blockchain ecosystems.
In addition, ZEROBASE is developing an open-source ZK library to support the broader blockchain community. This library, built on a decryption-enabled ZK framework, will help onboard real-world applications that have previously been out of reach for blockchain technology, further driving the adoption of ZK technology in Web3.
With its unique combination of speed, security, and privacy, ZEROBASE aims to be a key player in the future of decentralized computing and ZK technology.