Citrea, a new initiative led by Chainway Labs, has secured $2.7 million in funding to develop a zero-knowledge rollup solution for the Bitcoin network. Galaxy Digital’s Galaxy Ventures spearheaded the investment, which aims to augment Bitcoin’s ecosystem with cutting-edge privacy technology. The round included contributions from Delphi Ventures, Eric Wall, and Igor Barinov, among others, marking a significant step forward for Bitcoin’s infrastructure.
Zero-Knowledge Tech Expands Bitcoin’s Horizons
As the first of its kind, Citrea’s rollup solution leverages zero-knowledge proofs to enable a broad range of applications directly on Bitcoin’s blockchain. This approach, earmarked for 2023, promises to facilitate efficient and cost-effective transactions by aggregating them into batches. Known for its association with Ethereum’s Layer-2 networks such as Polygon and zkSync, this concept is now set to revolutionize Bitcoin’s transaction processing.
Despite existing second-layer Bitcoin solutions like the Lightning Network, and scaling projects ZKSats and Rollux, Citrea aims to surpass them. It intends to handle an increased volume of transactions and support a diverse array of applications without modifying Bitcoin’s core consensus rules.
New Possibilities within Bitcoin’s Framework
There’s a growing debate among Bitcoin developers about the blockchain’s optimal use. While some advocate for its original purpose as a peer-to-peer currency, others are testing its limits with innovations like Ordinals and BRC-20 tokens. Citrea’s vision, as outlined in a recent blog post, is to transform Bitcoin into a primary layer for blockchain gaming, NFTs, and the DeFi sector without sacrificing security or altering fundamental protocols. Its reliance on the Ethereum Virtual Machine also opens doors for EVM developers to create on the Bitcoin platform.