Polygon Labs acquires Toposware to enhance ZK capabilities

Polygon Labs today announced the acquisition of blockchain research and engineering firm Toposware. This acquisition is the third major zero-knowledge (ZK) purchase by Polygon Labs in under three years, following Hermez and Mir in 2021.

“The Toposware team’s deep cryptography and zero-knowledge expertise, as well as excellent engineering skills, have made them a perfect fit to help advance our vision of a unified Web3,” said Marc Boiron, CEO of Polygon Labs “Moreover, our previous collaboration on the Type 1 Prover and Toposware’s work on unifying blockchains have demonstrated that they are extremely well-suited to help develop and expand our prover development and the AggLayer going forward.”

The Type 1 zkEVM prover, a collaborative development between the companies, allows any Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible chain to adopt ZK-proof-based technology and connect to Ethereum.

Notably, the acquisition also sets the stage for the Polygon proof of stake network to join the AggLayer and transition to a ZK-secured chain. The AggLayer is Polygon’s vision to connect different layer-1 blockchains in the same ecosystem, enabling seamless transactions between them.

“We are excited to join Polygon Labs’ ZK-focused RD and engineering teams and contribute to unifying Web3 via the AggLayer,” noted Theo Gauthier. “The Polygon protocols are already well-known as leading blockchain scaling solutions, and the AggLayer will undoubtedly take the technical work Polygon is doing to a whole new level in the future.”

The announcement might also bring some much-needed attention to Polygon since its token MATIC has been underperforming its peers in 2024. Polygon’s total value locked (TVL) has shown just 3.2% in year-to-date growth, which pales in comparison to newcomer Base’s 294% rise.

Moreover, MATIC is struggling to find momentum in the current bull cycle, with a 30% price slump so far in 2024.