Binance Labs, the VC and innovation incubator of Binance, made an investment in Manta Network, the Web3 privacy protocol focused on privatizing crypto-assets.
Manta Network’s layer-1 network design “leverages zero-knowledge proofs to privatize crypto assets.” Built with the Substrate framework, Manta’s privacy tech interoperates with other parachain assets within the Polkadot and Kusama ecosystem. It has already secured one of the first ten parachains on Kusama for its canary network, Calamari Network, “after crowdloaning 218,000 KSM from the community.”
Recently, Manta introduced its Dolphin Testnet, which has carried out more than 10,000 unique private transactions.
Alongside the new investment, Binance Labs will reportedly “support the efforts of Manta Network as it continues to build out innovative products, services, and technologies that enable decentralized on-chain privacy.”
As noted in the update, Manta Network’s Dolphin testnet features will be “deployed on its Calamari Network first, in a service called MariPay.” At launch, MariPay will be able to “privatize various parachain assets on Kusama including KSM and Calamari’s native asset, KMA.”
At present, the Manta Network is working with different parachains “to achieve interoperability for privatization of their projects’ assets as well.”
Nicole Zhang, Investment Director at Binance Labs, said:
“Privacy is a necessity to ensure the scalability and growing use cases of Web3. We see Manta bringing a unique and valuable approach to tackling this issue. We look forward to working with the project on bringing scalable privacy to the blockchain space.”
Kenny Li, co-founder of Manta Network, added:
“Manta Network’s mission in the Web3 privacy space is to bring privacy as a utility to all crypto assets. We’re excited to bring on Binance Labs as a strategic investor, and look forward to working with them in expanding Manta Network’s privacy utility to other networks and decentralized applications.”
As covered recently, Binance Labs, the VC division and innovation incubator of Binance, confirmed its investment in Automata Network, which is described as a decentralized service protocol that offers privacy middlewares for dApps (or decentralized applications).
Automata Network addresses key pain points associated with Web3’s transparent and traceable interactions. Automata’s Conveyor has been designed to minimize Maximal Extractable Value “with ordered privacy, and has observed remarkable traction in the metaverse, expanding upon NFT launches with a fair and accessible design.”
Automata’s Witness, an off-chain governance solution with built-in privacy features, has supported more than 13 initiatives such as Polygon Network, Moonbeam Network, and Avalanche.
