Citrea, a project with the goal of introducing zero-knowledge rollups (ZK-rollups) to Bitcoin, has successfully concluded a seed funding round of $2.7 million. The funding was led by Galaxy Ventures, the venture arm of Galaxy Digital. Chainway Labs, the blockchain infrastructure firm responsible for building Citrea, will utilize the funding to bring the project to market.
Citrea claims to be the first rollup that enhances the capabilities of Bitcoin blockspace using zero-knowledge technology. This enables the construction of various applications on the Bitcoin network. The seed round, which closed in 2023, saw participation from Delphi Ventures, Eric Wall (co-founder of Taproot Wizards), Igor Barinov (founder of Blockscout), and other investors.
ZK-rollups have typically been associated with Ethereum and its layer-2 blockchains, such as Polygon and zkSync. The primary objective of ZK-rollups is to improve efficiency and reduce costs by bundling transactions on layer 2s and securing them using ZK-proofs. ZK-proofs allow the base blockchain to verify that the transactions occurred without revealing specific details about them. Bitcoin also has layer 2 solutions, including the Lightning Network and projects like ZKSats and Rollux that compete with Citrea.
Citrea claims that its ZK-rollup addresses Bitcoin’s challenges in handling a larger number of transactions and supports diverse applications without altering the consensus rules. The project leverages Bitcoin not only as a digital currency but also as a foundation for secure and settled transactions.
Citrea’s long-term vision, as stated in a blog post on February 6, is to establish Bitcoin as a base layer for an ecosystem of blockchain games, NFTs, and decentralized finance, while maintaining the security and consensus rules of Bitcoin. The project’s solution is based on the Ethereum Virtual Machine, which allows developers familiar with the EVM to build on the Bitcoin network.
In regards to Satoshi Nakamoto’s opinion on ZK-proofs, there is no definitive information available.