KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Miden, a project from Polygon Labs’ Agglayer Breakout Program, has secured $25 million in seed funding led by a16z crypto.
- Miden aims to revolutionize blockchain technology by moving execution and state to client-side devices, enhancing scalability and privacy.
- The project plans to airdrop 10% of its native tokens to POL stakers to foster support on the Agglayer.
- Miden’s mainnet launch is anticipated later this year, with a focus on core protocol advancements and ecosystem expansion.
Polygon Labs has announced that Miden, a project incubated from the Agglayer Breakout Program, has successfully spun off into a $25 million seed funding round. The round was led by a16z crypto, 1kx, and Hack VC, with participation from Finality Capital Partners, Symbolic Capital, P2 Ventures, Delta Fund, MH Ventures, and notable angels such as Rune Christensen from MakerDAO, Avery Ching from Aptos, and Sreeram Kannan from EigenLayer.
Led by Bobbin Threadbare, Dominik Schmid, and Azeem Khan, Miden joins other web3 projects like Sui and Aptos, with leadership that previously worked on the blockchain team at Facebook (now Meta). Miden is the second project to successfully graduate from the Agglayer Breakout Program, following Privado ID, and is set to connect with the Agglayer to enhance network effects. As part of its strategy, Miden plans to airdrop approximately 10% of its native tokens to POL stakers to encourage their support on the Agglayer.
Miden aims to evolve into a ZK-powered “edge” blockchain, moving execution and state to the client-side. This approach differs from traditional blockchains like Sui, Aptos, and Solana by enabling scalable, privacy-preserving applications. By pushing state and execution to user devices, developers can build systems with complex logic and hybrid public-private states while maintaining user confidentiality and compliance.
Bobbin Threadbare, co-founder of Miden, stated, “The reality is that no existing blockchain is ready for mass adoption. They either don’t scale, lack privacy, are hard to build on, or compromise the core principles of Web3 like self-custody and censorship resistance. However, with the advent of ZK technology, we can reimagine blockchain architecture and move both state and execution to the edge devices.”
Currently in its final alpha testnet phase, Miden supports a group of core builders through the Miden Pioneer program, which is designed to onboard early developers and stress-test the network through real use cases. Wei Dai, Research Partner at 1kx, commented on Miden’s potential, highlighting its ability to address issues like fragmentation, bottlenecks, and lack of privacy through zero-knowledge proofs.
The newly secured capital will accelerate Miden’s development roadmap, focusing on core protocol advancements, ecosystem expansion, and developer tooling. Alex Pack, Partner at Hack VC, described Miden as “the holy grail of decentralized technology,” combining private state, full smart contract support, and real scalability.
Miden’s mainnet is expected to launch later this year. More details can be found here.
Why This Matters: Impact, Industry Trends & Expert Insights
Polygon Labs’ Miden has successfully raised $25 million in a seed funding round led by a16z Crypto, marking a significant milestone in its development as a ZK-powered blockchain project.
Recent industry reports indicate that zero-knowledge (ZK) technology is increasingly being leveraged to enhance blockchain scalability and privacy. This aligns with Miden’s focus on using ZK proofs to enable scalable, privacy-preserving applications by executing on edge devices, setting it apart from traditional blockchain architectures.
As per insights from Bobbin Threadbare, co-founder of Miden, the project’s architecture allows for the execution of complex computations while maintaining privacy, which is a key differentiator from other blockchain technologies. This supports Miden’s strategy to leverage its recent funding to accelerate development and prepare for a mainnet launch, highlighting its potential to address existing blockchain limitations.
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