Blockchain interoperability developer Union Labs has raised $4 million in seed funding to construct a bridge connecting totally different Layer 1 and Layer 2 networks with zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs.
The funding was led by enterprise companies together with Galileo, Semantic Ventures, Tioga Capital, and Nascent. Different buyers within the spherical embrace Lightshift and Refrain One. The capital raised shall be used for hiring and enlargement efforts.
Not like modern bridging options, Union doesn’t grant relayers particular authority, making certain non-public keys aren’t a goal for safety hacks, as they can not take management of the protocol. Messages are verified utilizing ZK proofs as an alternative.
“Essentially the most outstanding hacks are bridge hacks, but bridges stay vital infrastructure for nearly all tasks, displaying the necessity for higher, extra resilient merchandise. It’s our accountability to innovate new methods to guard these property and additional the adoption of ZK applied sciences to appreciate a safe and interoperable cross-chain future,” stated Karel Kubat, founding father of Union Labs.
Architectural breakdown: Union’s ZK bridge parts
Union’s ZK bridge structure consists of two key parts that allow the challenge to facilitate Cosmos’ communication protocol, often known as IBC, on Ethereum; CometBLS, the consensus mechanism, and Galois, the zero-knowledge prover system.
Union’s CometBLS consensus permits the switch of any asset natively to any chain with out counting on third events, oracles, or multi-signatures (multi-party computation). CometBLS augments Cosmos’ Tendermint consensus, in response to the group.
