Polygon Labs (MATIC) and the NEAR Foundation have recently announced their collaboration on the development of a zero-knowledge (ZK) prover for the WebAssembly (Wasm) blockchain. The alliance aims to “bridge the gap” between Wasm-based chains and the Ethereum ecosystem, providing...
NEAR Foundation Joins Polygon As Core Contributor
As part of this partnership, the NEAR Foundation is set to become a core contributor to Polygon CDK, expanding the toolkit’s capabilities for developers.
Sandeep Nailwal, the co-founder of Polygon, expressed pride in collaborating with NEAR on this research and emphasized the value of the zkWasm prover in providing developers with increased customization options.
Scalability And Decentralization Boost?
Per the announcement, in the future, an in-development interop layer will allow chains to join a unified ecosystem of Layer 2 solutions deployed through Polygon CDK.
This ecosystem will encompass alternative layer-1 chains, EVM layer-2 solutions, and Wasm chains, providing interoperability and defragmentation of liquidity across different chains.
Illia Polosukhin, co-founder of NEAR Protocol, expressed optimism about the collaboration, emphasizing that it will bring the benefits of zero-knowledge proofs not only to NEAR but to the entire Web3 ecosystem. Polosukhin stated:
We are very excited to work with Polygon Labs to bring all the benefits of zero-knowledge proofs not just to NEAR but all of Web3. NEAR is integrating more with Ethereum by innovating in new research frontiers, and the shared expertise of these two teams will bring a much-needed expansion of the ZK landscape and defragmentation of liquidity across chains. And by creating and using the zkWasm prover, NEAR will also improve the scalability and decentralization of the NEAR L1.
Overall, the collaboration between Polygon Labs and the NEAR Foundation holds significant implications for both protocols. Integrating the zkWasm prover will enhance the capabilities of Polygon CDK, providing developers with more options in building “custom blockchains.”
Additionally, it will bring NEAR Protocol closer to Ethereum, expanding its interoperability and liquidity opportunities.
This positive movement is further bolstered by an impressive 11% uptrend recorded over the past 24 hours.
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