Bolt Labs, which claims to be a “mission-driven” security and privacy startup, has announced a $9 million strategic partnership “with blockchain gaming company, Forte, a …provider of blockchain solutions for game publishers, to support its adoption of cryptographic technologies, including multi-party computation (MPC) and zero-knowledge proofs.”
This three-year partnership follows Bolt’s recent extended seed round, which “closed at $4.3 million and will see Forte’s technology upgraded to prioritize in-game privacy and security for its users.”
The partnership with Bolt Labs will “enable Forte’s strong community of millions of gamers and more than 40 game publishers to leverage state-of-the-art cryptographic technologies, empowering users to securely store keys for their game assets and make private payments.”
This comes at a time when “a variety of high-profile hacks continue to hurt users.”
Just last month, in the second-largest crypto hack in history, $600 million was siphoned from users of Ronin network, “an Ethereum sidechain built to support the play-to-earn game Axie Infinity.”
By leveraging Bolt’s technology, Forte is now uniquely positioned “to help prevent future exploits, such as this from impacting its users, while still providing them with full control over their assets.”
Bolt Labs’ mission is “to build usable, secure, and scalable infrastructure that enables everyone to securely store their keys while preserving the privacy of their transactions.”
For instance, Bolt facilitates private payments “by leveraging zkChannels — an anonymous off-chain protocol that enables cheap and private value transfer between participants on the network.”
Forte’s community of publishers, developers, and other content partners will also “gain access to Bolt Labs’ secure key management solution, a technology that will facilitate custody of in-game assets and non-fungible tokens (NFT).”
Bolt Labs will “provide this by leveraging multi-party computation (MPC) to help Forte secure keys for in-game cryptocurrency assets at scale, allowing players to control their assets securely and privately.”
MPC allows a group of participants “to evaluate a computation without any of them revealing their own private data, which can compute the value of a public function when put together without compromising the secrecy of each individual piece.”
This minimizes the risk of having their assets compromised or vulnerabilities “exploited by bad actors. MPC is fast becoming the standard for digital asset security and it can deliver both usability and security in a decentralized system.”
J Ayo Akinyele, CEO and Co-founder at Bolt Labs, said:
“With blockchain gaming becoming increasingly popular among mainstream audiences that might not be familiar with securing their crypto assets, it’s crucial that the right technology is deployed. That is, the technology that ensures asset security, confidentiality and prevents misuse while achieving true property rights for gamers in a web3 world.”
Akinyele added:
“With MPC technology, we can secure digital assets at scale, with blockchain-agnostic, off-chain computations. Bolt is leading the way in developing and integrating this technology to help Forte realize its web3 gaming vision.”
The Forte platform “prioritizes organic gameplay, end-user participation and growth by facilitating community governance and interoperability.”
The company has raised more than $900 million “to onboard more publishers and enable game companies to create compliant and interoperable blockchain games.”
Ronen Kirsh, VP of Strategic Partnerships, at Forte, says:
“Forte has come a long way since we first began our journey to turn traditional gaming on its head by introducing community ownership and governance. Today, we’re the preferred platform for millions of gamers, and we aim to continue to grow our community by continually shoring up our compliance solutions and upgrading our infrastructure. We believe Bolt Labs will have a significant impact on our user experience and will provide a hospitable environment for new entrants to remain safe and have a pleasant experience on Forte.”
Bolt Labs’ mission is “to build usable, secure, and scalable infrastructure that enables everyone to securely store their keys while preserving the privacy of their transactions.”
Bolt enables private payments “by leveraging zkChannels — an anonymous off-chain protocol that enables cheap and private value transfer between participants on the network.”
The Bolt team “consists of cryptographers and engineers with expertise in developing and deploying real-world applications of secure multi-party computation and zero-knowledge proof technology.”
Forte is “building economic technology for games.”
Its end-to-end platform “enables the emergence of community economics, a system where the interests of game developers and players are aligned, leading to healthier, sustainable game communities.”
The team is composed of longtime industry members (Unity, ngmoco, Riot Games, Electronic Arts, Sony, and Rockstar Games, among others), and “is currently working with over 40+ acclaimed game developers from across the industry to reimagine the economics of games.”