German cryptocurrency startup Irreducible raised $24 million in Series A funding, led by Paradigm and Bain Capital Crypto, with participation from Distributed Capital, L2 Iterative Ventures, Robot Ventures, and several angel investors. Irreducible was founded in 2022, formerly known as Ulvetanna. It focuses on the infrastructure of zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) generation, aiming to improve efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Irreducible currently has 25 employees and plans to double the size of its engineering team in the next two to three years.

On May 29th, Polygon Labs core developers announced that the blockchain aggregation layer AggLayer will use SP1 (a universal zkVM that supports standard Rust and uses Plonky3 as its proof system) to generate a key component of AggLayer called pessimistic proof, which is a zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) method used to ensure the security of AggLayer.

On May 24, it was reported that the second-layer modular ZKVM project Ola has completed the first Token Snapshot of the mobile ZKP verification network Massive, and the user page of the first season has been updated, and users can now go to the official website of Ola to view the Snapshot of points in the first season and the proportion of points Token. Users who already have accumulated points only need to continue to be active in the Massive network at each terminal to be eligible to claim the final Token.

Golden Finance reported that the second-layer ZKVM project Ola issued a document on the X platform that the Token Distribution Snapshot for early Massive users is planned to be carried out at 12:00 UTC on May 11 (8:00 Beijing time). Ola also said that as OlaMassive reaches the milestone of 200,000 registrations, Ola will also reserve an undisclosed portion of Ola Token for early active Massive participants. According to Ola's Distribution Snapshot Program, the upcoming Snapshot of Phase 1 will provide a portion of Token to Phase 1 participants. Phase 2 After the first phase, scores will be reset for all participants and start over. Each new stage ensures that all users start on an equal basis, and the total amount of Ola Tokens received by users will be based on the sum of the invitation points and ZKP verification completion points for each stage. In order to qualify for the final Token distribution, the Address must remain active until the TGE, maintaining participation to ensure ongoing participation in rewards, and Ola will provide details about the Token distribution prior to the TGE.

On April 30, the second-layer modular ZKVM project Ola's mobile ZKP verification network Massive has officially launched on the iOS App Store. iOS users can now download and register the Massive app. Previously, Massive was already available on Android and Solana mobile platforms.

Odaily Planet Daily News Layer 2 ZKVM project Ola posted on the X platform that the Ola mobile mining module Massive has been officially launched, Android mobile phone users can download it now, and the iOS version will be launched later. Massive provides a series of mining tasks and reward mechanisms, including that by connecting to the Massive network, users will receive and complete zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) verification tasks, contributing to the security and stability of the network. After completing each mining task, users will not only be rewarded with Massive points, but will also have the opportunity to further increase the rewards by inviting new users. With more than 130,000 registered nodes, Ola has increased the number of tokens originally planned to be allocated 10% to the Massive module to 13%, and the tokens that will be pre-allocated to the Massive module during the testnet phase have been increased from 1% to at least 2%. Ola's new testnet is expected to go live in mid-April, and the mainnet is expected to go live by the end of Q2.

PANews reported on January 23 that Ingonyama, an innovative company focused on accelerating and democratizing Zero-Knowledge Proof technology, has completed a $21 million seed round led by IOSG Ventures, Geometry and Walden Catalyst Ventures. IOSG Ventures is committed to supporting projects that are making breakthroughs in ZK technology innovation and application development, and will enter into a long-term partnership with Ingonyama to focus on the broader development of ZK technology. Ingonyama is currently focused on improving the capabilities of Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP) through its product ICICLE. ICICLE's ability to accelerate ZKP computation on GPUs is designed to make ZKP faster, more accessible, and affordable. In the future, Ingonyama plans to continue to develop and optimize ZKP technology and expand its application range, not only in the Blockchain field, but also in more industries that require a high level of privacy and security. At the same time, it will establish a wider range of developers to promote the popularization and application innovation of ZKP technology.

Celer Network said on social media that the BRC-20 Cross-Chain Interaction Bridge will be released in two phases. The first phase will see the release of an SGN-based Cross-Chain Interaction bridge, which will be secured by a PoS and Optimistic dual-mode Cross-Chain Interaction Consensus based on its xAsset locking casting model. The second phase will be integrated with the intelligent ZK coprocessor Brevis to enable trustless BRC-20 zkBridge, leveraging ZKP to improve security.

On December 7, Loopring, a ETH Layer 2 protocol, announced a partnership with ZKPool, a zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) infrastructure, to promote the integration of ZKP technology in blockchain applications. The cooperation will enable both parties to share verification resources, reduce the verification costs associated with the ZK-rollup project, and improve efficiency.

Scroll announced that Circle's cross-chain USDC standard is now integrated into the Scroll ZKP mainnet, a new contract standard that introduces significant composability upgrades, enhances user security and eliminates liquidity fragmentation of USDC on Scroll.

PANews reported on November 16 that, according to official information, ZK-RaaS platform Lumoz (formerly Opside) announced today at the RaaS Day co-hosted by Polygon that it will launch StableNet in December. StableNet is a zkEVM based on Ethereum as L1, and its innovations include: 1. Using USDC stablecoin as the native token, and trading gas fees are priced by USDC, 2. The first is based on Polygon CDK and Celestia's mainnet zkEVM project;3.Support atomic cross-rollup communication, which means that addresses on StableNet can directly call contracts on Ethereum;4.Decentralized prover network is introduced, ZKP computing power is more stable and reliable;5.Optimized Gas economic model, all gas fee revenue generated on StableNet will be fed back to the community, including Dapp developers, LP providers and ordinary users. Lumoz is an officially certified CDK technology provider for Polygon. Lumoz has undergone a deep technical transformation and customization upgrade for Polygon CDK. At the same time, Lumoz also supports zkSync, Scroll and other types of zkEVM.

ZK-RaaS platform Lumoz (formerly Opside) announced today at RaaS Day co-hosted with Polygon that it will launch StableNet in December. StableNet is a zkEVM with Ethereum as L1, and the innovations include: 1. USDC stablecoin is used as the native token, and the gas fee for transactions is priced by USDC. 2. The first mainnet zkEVM project based on Polygon CDK and Celestia; 3. Support atomic cross-rollup communication, which means that addresses on StableNet can directly call contracts on Ethereum; 4. The decentralized prover network has been introduced, and the ZKP computing power is more stable and reliable. 5. Optimized gas economic model, all gas fee revenue generated on StableNet will be fed back to the community, including DApp developers, LP providers, and ordinary users. Lumoz is an officially certified CDK technology provider for Polygon. Lumoz has undergone a deep technical transformation and customization upgrade for Polygon CDK. At the same time, Lumoz also supports zkSync, Scroll and other types of zkEVM.

A study by Salus Security co-founder Mirror Tang and his colleagues showed that the privacy features provided by zero-knowledge proofs (ZKPs) can be applied to the Ethereum mainnet, Gold Finance reported. Tang said the study points out that if we can incorporate ZKP technology into the Solidity compiler using computational optimization, we could significantly reduce the gas fees of Ethereum itself. As a result, trading activity will be concentrated in the main network rather than scattered across different L2 ecosystems.

Odaily Planet Daily News ETHGlobal announced the list of 11 finalists for the ETHOnline 2023 hackathon, which are the smart wallet browser plug-in WalletX, the npm library Koinu that can provide cross-chain token transfer in DApps, EVM+, the project PACKD that allows users to create and share digital asset packages, the dynamic on-chain game Cosmic Cowboys, and the new method zkVRF that implements verifiable on-chain randomness by ZKP, ShopConnect, a personalized e-commerce powered by ZKP, Cryptopolis, a city simulator crypto game, Bear Bonds, a full-chain bond that rewards long-term holders, SherLOCKED, a FHE-based EVM blockchain privacy support infrastructure, decentralized cross-chain bounties, and ZTF, a crisis management protocol.